Firewalls are often the first line of defense—but they’re only as effective as the rules, architecture, and tuning behind them. In this episode, we explore advanced firewall configurations, including layered rule sets, port and protocol filtering, application awareness, and geographic blocking. We discuss the use of stateful inspection, deep packet inspection (DPI), and integration with threat intelligence feeds that enable firewalls to recognize malicious patterns in real time. Firewalls can also serve as traffic shapers and segmenters, helping to enforce internal access controls, isolate high-risk systems, and contain intrusions. We emphasize the importance of regular rule reviews, default deny policies, and logging practices that capture enough detail for audits and investigations. Firewalls aren’t just technical barriers—they’re policy enforcement points that must evolve with your threat model.