Novice Questions: Non-Standard Service Listening on Port/Firewalls

From: sammy (notvalid_at_it.com)
Date: 08/18/04 

Date: Wed, 18 Aug 2004 14:12:11 -0600

Hi,

I'm just getting into this network security stuff and have a few basic
questions:

1.) If ALL ports are closed except ONE, and...

on that one port I have listening a custom service that I wrote in C, and...

the server is directly connected to the Internet for all to see, ...

am I right in assuming the only way someone can get in from the Internet is
through exploiting a buffer overflow in my code after making a basic socket
connection?

2.) How effective/useful is Windows 2003 Server's ICF? Does it do at least
part of some job well?

3.) I know you get what you pay for, but what budget firewall appliances are
worth their salt if the only aspect of it that I'm willing to pay the extra
penny for is performance? Just to start-out and upgrade later.

Thanks!
Sammy

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