Re: belkin gateway/firewall and zone alarm

From: Jason Edwards (none1_at_invalid.invalid)
Date: 01/23/05 

Date: Sun, 23 Jan 2005 19:29:49 -0000

"GavT" <Gavtpat@btinternet.com> wrote in message
news:ct0pe3$f27$1@titan.btinternet.com...
> Hi
>
> I have been using Zone alarm on my gateway PC using ICS to connect (ISDN
> dial up) my home network to the internet. This has worked well for some
> months. I have now converted to broadband and am using a belkin combined
> modem/router which has a built in NAT+SPI firewall. I am happy that the
> hardware firewall will protect me from external intrusion but would like
to
> use zone alarm to provide internal protection /program control. Can anyone
> point me in the direction of a zone alarm setup guide for this type of
> configuration. I want to setup ZA free on 3 laptops and a PC to protect
each
> from Trojans etc.

ZA does not protect you from trojans etc.
What it does do is allow the trojan to be installed and then on the next
reboot it pops up a message along the lines of "do you want winservice32.exe
to connect to the Internet".
Since you have three laptops and a PC it is likely that you have at least
one user who will answer yes to the above question.

The hardware firewall will not protect you from external intrusion; however
it will ignore incoming connection requests unless you have configured any
port forwarding.
When your user answers yes to the above question then, depending on the
particular trojan, you may end up with more external intrusion that you know
what to do with.

So where do we go from here?
Well, that's difficult to say without knowing more about your experience and
knowledge and the experience and knowledge of the other people who will use
your laptop and PCs.

I'm not suggesting that the use of the belkin router is a bad thing.
I'm not even suggesting that the use of ZA is bad IF you know exactly what
it does and are able to configure it. But in most of the cases I have come
across the use of ZA has not been of benefit because the user does not know
what it does and cannot configure it correctly. It therefore increases the
complexity of the system while providing little benefit to the user.

If you want to protect yourself from trojans then I think it's a good idea
to think about how trojans may get into your computer. Perhaps you could let
me know some of the ways that a trojan may get itself installed on your
computer and then we can consider ways to prevent this.

Jason

>
> GavT
>
>

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