555 Posted October 29, 2010 Share Posted October 29, 2010 I know for certain people and business it is ussually built into the router right? but what about for just a regular home user, say zone alarm.. seems like all it does is slow the pc down and gets annoying with all the pop up screens asking you to accept or deny connections. If someone really wanted to hack the persons pc they can get around a firewall like zone alarm right? What are your opinions? (remember for a average pc user) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sparda Posted October 29, 2010 Share Posted October 29, 2010 Zone alarm is a bloated over featured piece of used-to-be-good-ware. The built in windows firewall or router is usually sufficient. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Samysam Posted October 29, 2010 Share Posted October 29, 2010 Router AND windows default firewall you don't want to go without a firewall, infact I just showed my brother how easy it can be to exploit a firewall-less PC Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sparda Posted October 29, 2010 Share Posted October 29, 2010 you don't want to go without a firewall, infact I just showed my brother how easy it can be to exploit a firewall-less PC Which requires 'physical' access to the network. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
okiwan Posted October 29, 2010 Share Posted October 29, 2010 do you really need locks on your front door? i mean if some one wants to break into your house they are gonna do it regardless. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sparda Posted October 29, 2010 Share Posted October 29, 2010 do you really need locks on your front door? i mean if some one wants to break into your house they are gonna do it regardless. Now we are in to the ground of making your self the least attractive target ;) If your computer is harder to brake in to than the next one, the attacker is going straight to the next one, unless they have a very good reason to specifically target you. This is known as the 'low hanging fruit' approach to security (see pauldotcom.com). The attackers, most of the time, go for the low hanging fruit. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Infiltrator Posted October 30, 2010 Share Posted October 30, 2010 Firewalls are good and they keep you safe to an extent. Especially in the event of zero days attack, when attackers are trying to exploit targets that haven't been patched up. Zone Alarm used to be good back in the old days, but I now use Comodo Firewall always served me well. Firewalls can be annoying, due to the pops up and that's what I like about Comodo. It has security modes that you can set to, and one of them is the Learning Mode, it studies and learns all the traffic patterns that flows through it and if it finds anything suspecting it will block, but it won't be displaying much pop ups in this mode. It will still be protecting your computer but won't be much annoying. Alternatively if you don't want to install a firewall in your computer, go with Untangle. Untangle is a Linux firewall box that sits between your modem and your network. It comes with IDS and the best AntiVirus on the house (Kyspersky). http://www.untangle.com/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sparda Posted October 30, 2010 Share Posted October 30, 2010 Firewalls are good and they keep you safe to an extent. Especially in the event of zero days attack Well, not really. How would a firewall protect against a o day that targets adobe reader or flash (which they usually do -.-)? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Infiltrator Posted October 30, 2010 Share Posted October 30, 2010 (edited) Well, not really. How would a firewall protect against a o day that targets adobe reader or flash (which they usually do -.-)? I said to an extend, if the Firewall has IPS incorporated this attacks can be mitigated. Edit: http://www.stonesoft.com/en/press_and_medi...0/17062010.html Edited October 30, 2010 by Infiltrator Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
555 Posted October 30, 2010 Author Share Posted October 30, 2010 (edited) Comodo is pretty good. Firewalls are pretty useless for a normal computer user though right? (besides windows built in firewall) If you are really worried about security everything would be monitored 24/7 with snort, virtual machines, sniffers and all that stuff correct? If I had an old computer box like 1/2 GB ram, 20GB HD, what would be the best way to turn that into a firewall box and do nothing other then be a firewall box? I agree with Sparda there are so many ways to get past the firewall, whats the point? unless it is a script kiddy attacking and you have a hole somewhere. (the low hanging fruit) Edited October 30, 2010 by 555 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Infiltrator Posted October 30, 2010 Share Posted October 30, 2010 (edited) Comodo is pretty good. Firewalls are pretty useless for a normal computer user though right? (besides windows built in firewall) If you are really worried about security everything would be monitored 24/7 with snort, virtual machines, sniffers and all that stuff correct? If I had an old computer box like 1/2 GB ram, 20GB HD, what would be the best way to turn that into a firewall box and do nothing other then be a firewall box? I agree with Sparda there are so many ways to get past the firewall, whats the point? unless it is a script kiddy attacking and you have a hole somewhere. (the low hanging fruit) A simple firewall has no way of knowing what traffic is good and what traffic is bad, unless you specifically configure it to recognize the traffic. Firewalls that incorporate IDS gives it the ability to detect a bad traffic or for example will alert you of intrusion attempt, and it is therefore up to you to deal with the problem. On the other hand, IPS (Intrusion Prevention System) as opposed to Snort which does only detection, it has the ability to detect and at the same time block the attack. If you want to give your home network a better protection against attacks, I would recommend Untangle if you are on a tight budget and want the best free firewall available. Hope this helps Edited October 30, 2010 by Infiltrator Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BlueWyvern Posted October 30, 2010 Share Posted October 30, 2010 All I will say on the subject of installing a software firewall is check out episode 810 and tell me what you think. http://www.hak5.org/episodes/episode-810 Note to listen closely about Teredo Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
555 Posted October 30, 2010 Author Share Posted October 30, 2010 (edited) Yeah untangle looks nice. I will watch the episode, and edit post later, thanks! :) Edited October 30, 2010 by 555 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Infiltrator Posted October 31, 2010 Share Posted October 31, 2010 This is true even more so if the attacker is a meer skiddie which sadly is often the case, they'll use public tools to try and gain access to your network. if your secured even a little most skiddies wont know what to do to get in so... as stated they'll usually go for the "low hanging fruit" because its so much easier to get to. That's why Script Kiddies they don't go too far. Only the real hackers will go that extra mile if it worth for them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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