Are Firewalls Dead?

Is your firewall running? Well maybe you'd better catch...ah never mind, it's an old, unfunny joke.

But seriously, is your firewall doing anything for your security? No, really. With so many of today's attacks coming over port 80, is your firewall providing any defense anymore? Has the firewall outgrown its usefulness and been passed over by a new generation of sophisticated attacks? Well, that is what Microsoft security expert Roger Grimes thinks.

Roger writes for InfoWorld and back in May he set off something of a firestorm in the security industry when he suggested that firewalls are dead. Ever since there has been a back and forth over this alleged heresy in the security arena. Roger published a second article on his views where he did a nice job of responding to some of the more reasoned responses to his original article.