Firewalls and encryption serve fundamentally different purposes in information security. A firewall is designed to control incoming and outgoing network traffic based on predetermined security rules and primarily acts as a barrier between trusted and untrusted networks. Encryption, however, protects data by transforming it into an unreadable format for unauthorized users, ensuring confidentiality. While firewalls may protect data in transit from network-based attacks, they do not encrypt or secure data at rest – this is the specific role of encryption techniques, such as full-disk or file-based encryption.