Re: Am I more vulnerable using broadband?

From: Joseph Whalen (jwhalen_at_ourbasement.net)
Date: 07/21/03 

Date: Mon, 21 Jul 2003 14:57:58 -0400

A cable modem is just as vulnerable to attack as a dial up modem. Three big
differences are:

1. You have a faster connection and thus much more appealing to someone
interested in taking control of your machine.
2. Unless you take steps otherwise you are always connected to the internet.
3. Cable modem IP address are routinely scanned by people looking to exploit
an unprotected connection (dial up pools are as well but more for harassment
than anything else)

There are a number of things you can and probably should do to secure your
system.

1. Do not run it 24/7, only run it online when you need to. This will
minimize the opportunities for exploitation.
2. Implement a hardware filewall such as a Cable/Modem router. This is a
device that will sit between your cable modem and your machine. If
configured properly it will insulate your computer from much of the dangers
on the net and assist you in being less obvious to those on the internet
(especially most script kiddies). Obsurity is security when it comes to the
internet.
3. Install a personal firewall on your actual computer. You will find that
the router will not stop everything, so having a personal firewall will
assist in catching anything that might slip through.
4. Install antivirus software on your actual computer. Regardless of how
insulated you may be from the internet via firewalls, there are conventional
delivery methods of getting a malicious program on your system even through
firewalls.

The last two items can generally be purchased together. I recommend
PCCillin by TrendMicro which comes with a very good Anti-virus software,
fairly solid personal firewall, as well as pop3 email virus scanning. It's
a good solid product for the price and it's auto-update features help to
ensure you have the latest virus definitions.

Of course all of the above is well and good for a start. But it certainly
isn't a one and done type of deal. It's important to keep track of any
intrusion detection to the firewall. Linksys is helpful with this in that
they provide a logviewing software that allows you to have the router dump
incoming and outgoing logs to a specific computer on your internal network.
This allows you to track any potential threats. After you've identified the
threats you can then explicitly restrict IP address and in many cases entire
classes of IPs from your machine through your personal firewall.

It's also important to keep up on updates to your operating system and all
the security components. This means updating the Firewall, Anti-Virus
software and anti-virus definitions. For this reason I recommand using a
packaged firewall/antivirus software. This helps in the maintenance of the
components as they generally will update together through a unified software
updater.

I hope this helps.

"Frank Z" <YamaNiyama@go.com> wrote in message
news:3f1b930e.2200239@news.cis.dfn.de...
>
> I have signed up for broadband internet with a cable company. I
> haven't actually been connected yet. Does broadband, with its
> permanent connection to the internet, make one moe vulnerable to
> spyware, trojan horses, and other security dangers? If so, what are
> the chief dangers associated with broadband and is there an easy way
> to protect onesself?
>
> Thanks..
>
> Frank Z

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