Comparing Context Based Access Control to Zone-based Policy Firewalls

Abstract

Abstract: This paper will be introducing a comparative study on the choices between two best classical software firewalls one is Context Based Access Control (CBAC) and Zone Based firewall (ZBF). Both of them may deliver a stateful inspection of TCP, UDP and/or ICMP control packets. Through this study, two type of networks were designed one used the CBAC firewall and the other works with a zone based firewall. The result obtained showed that ZBF has several feature which are not available in CBAC. Furthermore, ZBF deals with the security zones the traffic will be dynamically inspected as it passes through the zone. In order to monitor the network, GNS3 and Wirshrah tools has been used to configure the required network. Then we have used different scenarios to inspect and evaluate the behavior of the network. In this study firewalls were implemented in software not in hardware as separate devices. That is, they are building functions of the routers. In our project, two networks were designed The first one has two areas LAN and WAN, while the second contains three areas LAN, WAN and DMZ. Key Words: CBAC; ZBF; GNS3; Wirshark; TELNET; SSH; HTTP; Ping.