Re: Security discussion regarding hubs, firewalls, anti-virus and Vista Security
- From: "FromTheRafters" <erratic@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 20 Aug 2008 17:13:52 -0400
Wikipedia comes to mind.
http://www.wikipedia.org/
Some responses inline
"eganders" <eganders@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1ccbb3b6-01f3-40a2-83e2-ab2f7440b568@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Security discussion
These are a very basic set of questions. Possibly there is an article
on the web that someone can point me to that fully addresses each of
these:
There are, and I'm sure some experts here will provide some
for you. I find wikipedia a good resource for this kind of thing.
What security protection should I expect from:
a wireless hub/router
At the very least it can be set to drop any incomming attempt
to set up a communications channel. If you run a server of some
sort, and you want to allow such an incomming connection you
"forward" that port. This does not affect two way communication
that was initiated by you i.e. 'outgoing' requests to the ISP's web
server or mail server and the incomming subsequent returns.
Also, these devices can run additional filtering software - and more.
These devices sit between you and the outside world and do not
depend on the integrity of your computer system. They are firewalls
because they compartmentalize the network similar to the way
actual firefighting firewalls do for a building.
a software firewall
This is an attempt to get the functionality of the routers firewall
plus the additional filtering, plus other features onto the system
it hopes to protect. They depend on the integrity of the system
unlike the device above.
With mobile computing, it is a very good idea to have a software
firewall because you don't always have control over the router
or wireless access point when you travel - or for some reason
you another's Wi-Fi network such as a cafe 'hot spot'.
a software anti-virus, anti-trojan program
These are two different things - although often lumped together.
Basically, you need both. In a way, the second detects malicious
(or otherwise bad) programs - and the first detects malicious (or
otherwise bad) programming code within an otherwise good
program. You could say that a virus is a replicating trojan - it
makes trojans out of pre-existing programs as it replicates into
them.
....from here it gets even murkier, so - you need both and you
might just as well have them combined into one in the form of
an 'on-access' or 'real time' or 'active' scanner. It wouldn't hurt
to have other detector programs that you run when you want
to 'on demand', but only one 'on access' scanner.
the security built into Vista
This is too general to go into, as there are lots of good security
features built-in to Vista. My advice, don't circumvent any of
them. Better is to learn how to operate within the parameters
Vista have provided (which is what you are doing).
The reason I ask this is that I have a Linksys wireless hub with a WEP
code activated and I also had Zonealarm with Windows XP. I had my
files shared. I thought that the wireless hub should provide hardware
based security from anyone being able to "look" at my files and anything
behind the hub.
Well, now you know that that assumption was wrong. :o)
I found that Zonealarm was giving me a lot
of warnings of malware and other outside people finding me and trying
to access my computer and that Zonealarm was stopping this.
Like a dog barking at passing cars is "protecting" you from
possible intruders. :o) Waking me up from a sound sleep
still rewards him with a pat on the head, so he keeps doing
it.
You can configure your software firewall to not do this I think.
(the dog is another matter) :o)
I don't
understand the Linksys hub's capabilities well enough to not ask "why
was the hub not keeping these outside intruders out?".
Port forwarding? Subsequent (not init) packets? Local Area Network
(LAN) traffic from within your wireless network? This is why software
firewall applications are not completely worthless.
I now have Vista and the security it provides is suffocating. I have
a hard time accessing my own files on other computers on my network
and you need an ADVANCED IT degree to work around it.
Previous MS OSes installed to provide a rich out-of-the-box
experience with servers running and just about every protocol
bound to every other protocol so that the user wouldn't have
to do anything 'advanced' to get anything done. It was a disaster
securitywise, although it probably did reduce the number of
support calls from users actually trying to do something.
Now it is more secure and it requires more of the user to work
within it - or to circumnavigate it. So it provides better default
security, and more customer complaints.
I would think
that you could provide a secure "knock'em dead" firewall with a
Linksys hub that would allow you to be "naked" behind the firewall so
you did not have to deal with security at all once you were safe
behind the Linksys firewall.
The problem arises with the malware you invite in. That is the
subsequent packets and other unfiltered items.
I think this shows why I need to learn
all I can so I don't leave my UAC off (which it is right now). I
want security, but I want to run my business also.
Read some Microsoft TechNet articles on UAC and LUA.
You seem to be very capable of learning how all this works.
.
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