Advice from the Factory
Firewall Software
Shields up Scotty! Basically that is what we have to do today to protect ourselves from outside intruders on the internet. The old man once said, "Why sonny I can remember when you could leave the front door unlocked, but you just cannot do it today!" The same can be said about computers and hackers, you just cannot leave your computer unprotected. That is why "Firewall's were developed. Actually we have had them for years, but they were on mainframes and it was a process called at the time "login". About the same as logging in at your favorite game web site now. It is advised that all computers hooked up to the internet, be it Dial-up, ADSL, satellite or cable, a must for all computers is a firewall
There are thousands of ports that a hacker can just simply plug into to gain access and either look at your hard drives/permanent storage or to download malicious software or Trojan horses or make your system a server zombie. What firewalls do is to put a sentry at each port to ask the pertinent question, "What's your business here?", if the firewall does not get a proper answer, the firewall asks your permission to open that port to the request. At that point you can answer yes or no. No, the port stays closed. Some of the firewalls will even ask if a requesting application can have access to the internet. Personally I use Zone Alarm Pro, this is a paid for firewall. At the time I could not argue about the price $24.95. But Zone Alarm also puts out a free firewall. for personal use only. If it is going on a business computer, you must buy Zone Alarm. The Zone Alarm I have used for about three years and cannot complain it has severed me well. Again Computer Associates in their long term (one year) trial period EZ Armour has a firewall along with a virus protection program. Then there is a company called Kerio, Kerio Personal Firewall the name of their personal firewall. Agnitum is still another company that has a free firewall application called Agnitum free version. It may sound funny, but it is also recommended that dial up's also implement a firewall as well. It is a false impression that a dial up cannot be attacked, but a dial up connection can. A hacker could get lucky and find you. There is a falsehood that because your computer is shut down every night or not continually connected to the internet like a DSL or cable connected system that they are immune, dial ups are not immune. The other falsehood is that because dial up is a dynamic addressing system, that a hacker could never find you, WRONG! Hackers can and will evenly catch up with your dial up. Cable/DSL really have to have the firewall because; Most computers are left on 24/7/365 and are continually connected to the internet 24/7/365 as well. "Enough, beam me out of here Scotty (quote from the "Running Man)."
Here are the sites
that have firewall applications for free. All of these listings are
at their respective sites and that means you will have to click on the links
below:
Computer Associates
eTrust EZ Armor Security Suite
Agnitum free version
Zone Alarm free version
KerioPersonalFirerwall
These are just some of the free firewall sites that are out there, but it should be able to get you started for firewalls. Use these firewall applications any time your computer is on and on the internet.
Rick
*Kerio is a trademark of Kerio.
**Agnitum is a trademark of Agnitum.
±Zone Alarm is a trademark of Zone Labs.
eTrust EZ Armor Security Suite is a trademark of Computer Associates.