A Fireworks-Based Approach for Efficient Packet Filtering in Firewall

Information protection in computers is gaining a lot of importance in real world applications. To secure the private networks of businesses and institutions, a firewall is installed in a specially designated computer separate from the rest of the network so that no incoming packet can directly get into the private network. The system monitors and blocks the requests from illegal networks. The existing methods of packet filtering algorithms suffer from drawbacks in terms of search space and storage. To overcome the drawbacks, a Fireworks-based approach of packet filtering is proposed in this chapter. Termed Fireworks-based Packet Filtering (FWPF) algorithm, the sparks generated by the fireworks makes a decision about the rule position in the firewall ruleset matching with the incoming packet. The advantage of FWPF is that it reduces the search space when compared to the existing packet filtering algorithms.