Hi

I have just signed up for a broadband connection and I'm after some advice about securing my pooter from all the low life hackers on the net.

Presumably a firewall is the way forward - anybody got any recommendations please?

Thanks in advance!

[Edited to make the first sentence more compatible with English ]

[Edited by SWRTWannabe - 2/15/2002 9:01:39 AM]

 

ZoneAlarm will sort you out. Consistently gets good reviews and is very easy to use for the single user.

 

Zone Alarm, Back-Ice Defender, Norton Personal Firewall, some of the cheapy best ones

Get one quick though!

 

Sygate Personal Firewall is the way to go IMO

Tried the rest always went back to this one. Had problems with ZoneAlaram and MSN Messenger.

[Edited to say its FREE]

[Edited by DJ Dunk - 2/15/2002 8:54:24 AM]

 

hmmm,
I WANA FREE ONE

 

hold on... This sounds like a friday afternoon job Martyn

 

Personally I would find an old PC (486/Pentium) and run smoothwall. Moving the firewall off your main box allows you to run a couple of machines and gives some extra security against misconfiguration.

There is a GPL version which is free (the authors ask you to donate to a nominated cause). There will soon be a commercial home edition with some added features.

Deano

 

http://www.zonealarm.com/ is free for home users.

Never had any problems with it, although I've since moved onto a firewall appliance.

 

I use ZoneAlarm at home works a treat.

 

Take a look around http://grc.com/default.htm He has a host of information on Firewalls and test programs to see just how well protected your system is. He used to recommend ZoneAlarm (which is what I use) and I believe he was criticial of BlackICE.

 

A bit off-topic but how about free anti-virus as well (with regular updates)....

http://www.grisoft.com/html/us_downl.htm

Thanks

Gavin

 

I use an alcatel speedtouch 570 adsl router with built in firewall and wireless basestation (also available without wireless)

shows up as complete stealth at GRC. Gets a huge thumbs up.

 

"I use an alcatel speedtouch 570 adsl router with built in firewall and wireless basestation (also available without wireless)shows up as complete stealth at GRC. Gets a huge thumbs up. "

I'm not trying to put anyone down, but (I work as an IT Security Consultant) always remember that you get what you pay for...The Alcatel box has a packet filter included in it and not a Statefull Inspection Firewall and it's not (as far as I know) ICSA certfied...This doesn't mean it's not any good just that it will not keep out someone who is determined...think 1970's Ford locks versus Thatcham Class 1....

Also be careful with Wireless Lan as its even easier to sit out side your premises and act like your on the LAN...

You have to decided how much you could lose if someone gets in and then get the appropiate amount of security.

Regards


Jeff

 

Thanks for all your advice - I installed ZoneAlarm at the weekend, and even though I am still connecting via dialup, it's interesting to see what comes into your machine!

A little off topic, but I also gave Spam Punisher a go over the weekend - it was really easy to use and should hopefully do a little bit towards cutting down on spam.