What is a firewall and how does it work?

by Amrita Mitra | Mar 2, 2017 | CCNA, CCNP, CompTIA, Data Breaches and Prevention, DoS and DDoS Prevention, End Point Protection, Firewall, Information Security, Malware Prevention, Network Security, Online Banking Security, Security Fundamentals

based on a per-process basis instead of a per-port basis. Interested readers can get more information on this type of firewall here: What is a Web Application Firewall?

Proxy Servers

A proxy server works as a gateway between the internal network and the outside network for a specific network application and acts as a proxy on behalf of the network user. It hides the true network addresses and intercepts all packets entering or leaving the network. Proxy servers make tampering with an internal system from an external network more difficult. You will get more information on what proxy servers are and how they work here: What are proxy servers, and how do they work?

So, this was an introductory article on firewalls. I hope it helped. Interested readers who want to know more about how different malware and cyberattacks work and how we can prevent them may want to refer to the book “A Guide To Cyber Security.”

Security Fundamentals Practice Tests

The Security Fundamentals Practice Tests test one’s fundamental knowledge of cyber security. The practice tests are good for those who are preparing for various certification exams like the CCNA, CCNP, or CompTIA. They are also good for students and IT/security professionals who want to improve their understanding of cybersecurity.

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Calculate the pseudoinverse of a matrix using Python

by Amrita Mitra | October 3, 2023 | Featured, Linear Algebra | 0 Comments

What is the pseudoinverse of a matrix? We know that if A is a square matrix with full rank, then A-1 is said to be the inverse of A if the following condition holds: $latex AA^{-1}=A^{-1}A=I $ The pseudoinverse or the Moore-Penrose inverse of a matrix is a...

Cholesky decomposition using Python

by Amrita Mitra | October 3, 2023 | Featured, Linear Algebra | 0 Comments

What is Cholesky decomposition? A square matrix A is said to have Cholesky decomposition if it can be written as a product of a lower triangular matrix and its conjugate transpose. $latex A=LL^{*} $ If all the entries of A are real numbers, then the conjugate...

Tensor Hadamard Product using Python

by Amrita Mitra | October 3, 2023 | Featured, Linear Algebra | 0 Comments

In one of our previous articles, we already discussed what the Hadamard product in linear algebra is. We discussed that if A and B are two matrices of size mxn, then the Hadamard product of A and B is another mxn matrix C such that: $latex H_{i,j}=A_{i,j} \times...

Perform tensor addition and subtraction using Python

by Amrita Mitra | October 3, 2023 | Featured, Linear Algebra | 0 Comments

We can use numpy nd-array to create a tensor in Python. We can use the following Python code to perform tensor addition and subtraction. import numpy A = numpy.random.randint(low=1, high=10, size=(3, 3, 3)) B = numpy.random.randint(low=1, high=10, size=(3, 3, 3)) C =...

How to create a tensor using Python?

by Amrita Mitra | October 3, 2023 | Featured, Linear Algebra | 0 Comments

What is a tensor? A tensor is a generalization of vectors and matrices. It is easily understood as a multidimensional array. For example, in machine learning, we can organize data in an m-way array and refer it as a data tensor. Data related to images, sounds, movies,...

How to combine NumPy arrays using horizontal stack?

by Amrita Mitra | October 3, 2023 | Featured, Linear Algebra | 0 Comments

We can use the hstack() function from the numpy module to combine two or more NumPy arrays horizontally. For example, we can use the following Python code to combine three NumPy arrays horizontally. import numpy A = numpy.array([[1, 2, 3], [4, 5, 6], [7, 8, 9]]) B =...

How to combine NumPy arrays using vertical stack?

by Amrita Mitra | October 3, 2023 | Featured, Linear Algebra | 0 Comments

Let’s say we have two or more NumPy arrays. We can combine these NumPy arrays vertically using the vstack() function from the numpy module. For example, we can use the following Python code to combine three NumPy arrays vertically. import numpy A = numpy.array([[1, 2,...

Singular Value Decomposition (SVD) using Python

by Amrita Mitra | October 3, 2023 | Featured, Linear Algebra | 0 Comments

What is Singular Value Decomposition (SVD)? Let A be an mxn rectangular matrix. Using Singular Value Decomposition (SVD), we can decompose the matrix A in the following way: $latex A_{m \times n}=U_{m \times m}S_{m \times n}V_{n \times n}^T $ Here, U is an mxm matrix....

Eigen decomposition of a square matrix using Python

by Amrita Mitra | October 3, 2023 | Featured, Linear Algebra | 0 Comments

Let A be a square matrix. Let’s say A has k eigenvalues λ1, λ2, ... λk. And the corresponding eigenvectors are X1, X2, ... Xk. $latex X_1=\begin{bmatrix} x_{11} \\ x_{21} \\ x_{31} \\ ... \\ x_{k1} \end{bmatrix} \\ X_2=\begin{bmatrix} x_{12} \\ x_{22} \\ x_{32} \\ ......

How to calculate eigenvalues and eigenvectors using Python?

by Amrita Mitra | October 3, 2023 | Featured, Linear Algebra | 0 Comments

In our previous article, we discussed what eigen values and eigenvectors of a square matrix are and how we can calculate the eigenvalues and eigenvectors of a square matrix mathematically. We discussed that if A is a square matrix, then $latex (A- \lambda I) \vec{u}=0...