Journals Proceedings

Abstract

A firewall is a security guard placed at the point of entry between a private network and the outside Internet such that all incoming and outgoing packets have to pass through it. The function of a firewall is to examine every incoming or outgoing packet. Here the paper aims to implement ACO (ant colony optimization) in the design process thereby allowing better filtering of the packets. The design of the firewall will be based on matching the rules and remembering the rules accessed by laying down pheromone. In practical situations multiple request for the same rule(same host and destination) arrives at the filtering router, if we are able to speed up the entire lookup process then a high access rate and throughput can be achieved. In other words, by comparing the packet’s field values we first isolate the given rule in the rule set and then cache it in to speed up further lookup processes, also remembering the entire rule can increase the duration for which the rule will remain in the fast storage area. The idea is based on the fact that multiple requests for the same rule arrive at the filtering station. The rules here also contain a field indication the pheromone deposition value, whose rate of evaporation is governed by external factors like timers, environment variables, network congestion access frequency etc.