Active Net Steward - Distributed Firewall

(Firewalls) rely on the assumption that everyone on one side of the entry point, the firewall, is to be trusted, and that anyone on the out side is, at least potentially, an enemy. The vastly expanding Internet connectivity in recent years has called that assumption into question.'(1) Recent studies have proven just how incorrect that assumption is. A Digital Research Inc. reported 'Authorized users are by far a company's biggest security threat.' A study by the FBI and CSI showed 44% of respondents 'reported unauthorized access by employees.'(3) The report that opens the most eyes is a 1996 study by American Society for Industrial Security that reports 'A massive 75 per cent of all computer break-ins occurred internally.'(4) Whether this access was malicious or simple curiosity is irrelevant this access was possible because it was not stopped by traditional methods: firewalls and IDS. The question then becomes how do I deal with the implied trust afforded to users who are inside of the firewall either physically or electronically (via VPN or dialup)?