Patent · US Expired

Firewall system for protecting network elements connected to a public network

US5826014A · kind A · utility

577Cited by
23References
36Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventors

Key dates

Filing dateFeb 6, 1996
Grant dateOct 20, 1998
Priority date
Expiry dateFeb 6, 2016

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC H)Electricity
  • CPC primaryH04L63/02
  • WIPO fieldDigital communication
  • WIPO sectorElectrical engineering

Abstract

Providing a firewall for isolating network elements from a publicly accessible network to which such network elements are attached. The firewall operates on a stand alone computer connected between the public network and the network elements to be protected such that all access to the protected network elements must go through the firewall. The firewall application running on the stand alone computer is preferably the only application running on that machine. The application includes a variety of proxy agents that are specifically assigned to an incoming request in accordance with the service protocol (i.e., port number) indicated in the incoming access request. An assigned proxy agent verifies the authority of an incoming request to access a network element indicated in the request. Once verified, the proxy agent completes the connection to the protected network element on behalf of the source of the incoming request.

Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.