Software firewalls are said to be the most popular firewall of choice for most individual home users due to its easy-to-use security features. Like any software, software firewalls are installed on your PC and can be customized and configured according to your security preference. Any outside attempt to access or control your PC will be blocked based on the security settings of your software firewall and you can also get protection against the most common Trojan and e-mail worms. Users can set user defined controls in order to ensure safe file and printer sharing and to prevent unsafe applications from running on your PC. However, software firewalls can only protect the computer on which they are installed so each computer on a network must have its own software firewall in order to get protected.
Hardware firewalls can be normally bought as a stand-alone product without needing any other devices to function, although there are also hardware firewalls which are already found in broadband routers. A hardware firewall uses packet filtering in testing the header of a packet in order to know its source and destination. The information gathered is then compared to a set of predefined or user-created rules to see if the packet will be allowed to be forwarded or dropped. Generally, hardware firewalls have a minimum of four network ports used to connect other computers. It is important for any computer user to know the specific features of their hardware firewall in order to configure its settings for optimal security.
Global Certification Authority and security solutions provider Comodo has released their latest product which promises to provide the highest levels of security while maximizing usability, functionality and user configurability. Comodo Firewall Pro (V3.0) has the following added features:
• Anti-Leak Configuration
• On-Demand Virus Scanning
• A-VSMART Warranty Program
• Enhanced Default Configuration
According to Comodo’s website, the Comodo Firewall Pro (V3.0) also has:
• Clean PC Mode which works by preventing most types of malware and rootkits from being installed in your PC.
• Advanced Network Firewall Engine which offers a New Stealth Mode (makes your PC invisible to hackers and port scans), Wizard based auto-detection of trusted zones, and highly configurable rules interface for advanced users.
For more information on the product, visit www.personalfirewall.comodo.com
Tenable Nessus 3 landed top one on the Top 100 Network Security Tools survey conducted by Insecure.org. Because the survey for the years 2000 and 2003 were successes, they pushed another survey last 2006 with about 3, 243 respondents. Insecure.Org came up with 100 tool list, subdividing the list into categories. The respondents listed commercial and open source network security tools, regardless of the platform where the tool is allowed to run.
Top-listed Nessus is a premiere open source tool for vulnerability assessments. It natively works on different platforms like OpenBSD, FreeBSD, Linux, Solaris, OS X and Windows. It is architected to have a GTK graphical user interface.
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- Change default SSID. SSID is a network that is used by all routers and access points. As for the logins, manufacturers also set default SSID for their products. Important point to notice is that when a network is using a default SSID, it is consider right away being a network configured poorly. Internet hackers are more likely to attack these networks.
- Deactivate SSID Broadcast. A router or an access point typically broadcasts SSID (network name) over at regular time intervals. Since SSID Broadcast feature was designed to cater roaming Wi-Fi clients (i.e mobile hotspots), there is not a necessity to enable this feature in a home network.
Let us admit it: many wireless home connections have network security systems that are inappropriately secured. This is quite understandable because not all are well informed with the risks of either unsecured network system or the time to take setting up a decent security system. Because of unintelligent set up of wireless network, different risks and security problems arise. The Wi-Fi or Wireless Fidelity networking products of today’s time actually add up to the problem because configuration of its security features consumes and never intuitive.
To help you people who are not so into technical things, we are posting some tips that you can use to improve the quality of security of your wireless network at home. Watch out for next post containing the tips.
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To check if your computer has been turned to a zombie, there are available test sites you can find on the net. But you don’t just trust any site, you have to be somewhat picky on the test site that you will choose. Take this general rule: do not rely completely on sites that are provided by some company that is offering you firewall software products because obviously the findings will be bias: they would tell you to purchase their product because that is what they wanted from you.
After installing a reliable and trusted personal firewall, make sure that it is configured correctly. Then test it to ensure that the application is working purposely.
Once you have found out that you can actually test the quality of security that is implemented in your computer when you are online, you will see that it totally make sense. And it will make more sense if you can actually do the test to ensure your system’s security.
Your computer opens 65, 535 ports while you are surfing online on the cyber space or also known as the Internet. Because ports are blatantly open, some Interne outlaw may scan your system and may try its hardest to install what is called as a ‘bot’. This will make personal computer a part of some ‘botnet’.
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