It seems like at every site I read these days, either news or technical, there is a new article about hackers or companies being hacked. This is a very real problem that leaves a lot of business owners wondering if their network will be next. After all, if big companies like Sony Pictures, and banks, and insurance companies are getting hacked, how can anyone protect their network?

The ugly truth is that not many networks are well protected. Sure you have a firewall, but, at best, your firewall is just a screen to filter inbound traffic from accessing your computers. Most firewalls do not do anything to protect against outbound connections opened up by compromised computers. So your next level of protection is at each computer where everyone hopefully has updated antivirus and malware programs. This is all good stuff, but not enough to protect your network, especially if your network contains medical, financial, or personal information that you are responsible for protecting.

As long as we live in the “real” world, there are going to be users surfing the Internet from their work computers and eventually their computers get virused up or hit with some type of malware. These viruses or malware are what leads to networks getting hacked.

We have been working on a project lately that will help keep the hackers out of your network. It is a practical solution for small medical practices, that are subject to HIPPA regulations, to secure their networks in a way that would satisfy those HIPPA regulations. While not everyone falls under these HIPPA security regulations, they are good rules to live by if you want a secure network.

We have developed a solution where we take advantage of a Tomato router, and a separate security server (linux server) which monitors all network traffic. If the security server detects a connection, or attempted connection from someone that may be a unwelcome hacker, it sends a command to adjust the firewall on the router and simply cuts them off. Without getting into too much technical detail, we basically break the connection with the hacker before any damage can be done.

Now our firewall is an intelligent or active firewall that detects suspicious activity, either internal or external, and shuts the activity down by blocking its communication.

We are yet to come up with a name for this new product which we plan to roll out at the beginning of 2015. Suggestions are welcome. I would like to call it “Hacker Zapper”, or “Hacker Blaster”, but it will probably be given a name that would be more serious and attractive for HIPPA compliance use.

In any case, I am ready to roll this product out of the lab to some test sites. If you want to get in on this action, before the price goes up, give me a call and we will see what we can work out.