Re: Broadband on W98 - firewall necessary?

dtsonline_at_verizon.net
Date: 11/10/05 

Date: 10 Nov 2005 06:14:15 -0800

NAT only gives protection against connection initiation from the
outside. There are too many other ways to compromise a system for this
to be sufficient.

In answer to the original question, do you need a firewall or other
security product, No (blasphemy). However, the effort it takes to stay
safe without the help requires more time, effort, and knowledge then
most people have to spend.

Couple of recommendations for security on underpowered systems.

1. Get a DSL router with NAT and firewall (not the router alone). It
helps a great deal against incoming attacks.
2. Shutdown all un-necessary programs. All that crap that every
product adds to your startup sections of the registry. Don't forget to
look at system and user level registry areas. Also stop databases,
services, and other programs not being used. You may find a big
performance boost here as well.
3. Use an antivirus product (up to date). Even if you don't load the
active protection for resource reasons, you can schedule regular
scanning and reduce problems.
4. Use a spyware scanner like Adware. Again, if you don't use the
active protection, scan daily.
5. Tighten up browser security. Use Firefox, disable active content,
or make it prompt before running, disable pop-ups, don't accept cookies
randomly.
6. Be smart and aware. The seedier parts of the net are more likely
to give you problems then well established sites like news sites.

Don't confuse firewall, antivirus, spyware, popup blockers, and
security suites. The suite contains all of the above, the others may
have some overlap, but ultimately do one major job and address a single
class of threat. You need to be protected from all the threats to be
truly safe.

Really, if time is money to you, I recommend boosting the RAM and
putting on the security suite. But I wish you well in however you
decide to handle it.

/D
BigD

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