
It also travels with a portable device to provide protection when it's away from the organization's network.Ī host-based firewall helps secure a device by dropping all network traffic that doesn't match the administrator-designed rule set for permitted network traffic. A host-based firewall can help protect against attacks that originate from inside the network and also provide extra protection against attacks from outside the network that manage to penetrate the perimeter firewall. Running a host-based firewall on every device that your organization manages is an important layer in a "defense-in-depth" security strategy.

For a general overview of these threats, also known as advanced persistent threats (APT), see the Microsoft Security Intelligence Report. Reports of targeted attacks against organizations, governments, and individuals have become more widespread in recent years. Portable devices are often taken outside the network and connected directly to the Internet, without adequate protection between the device and security threats.

Some attacks might successfully penetrate the perimeter firewall, and at that point what can stop it? Other attacks might originate from inside the network, such as malware that is brought in on portable media and run on a trusted device. Although network perimeter firewalls provide important protection to network resources from external threats, there are network threats that a perimeter firewall can't protect against.
