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Im thinking of purchasing a physical firewall yet know next to nothing about them.I know a guy who has and he claims you dont need to run antivirus software if you run a physical firewall,as his compter knowlege seems dubios at best i thought i better ask here! Can you get away with just a physical firewall and no Ani-virus software?
Thanks for any help
Cheers
Dunxy

Posted: Wed Sep 15, 2004 1:07 am Post subject:

Generally, firewalls are configured to protect against unauthenticated
interactive logins from the ``outside'' world. This, more than anything,
helps prevent vandals from logging into machines on your network. More
elaborate firewalls block traffic from the outside to the inside, but permit
users on the inside to communicate freely with the outside. The firewall can
protect you against any type of network-borne attack if you unplug it.

Firewalls are also important since they can provide a single ``choke point''
where security and audit can be imposed. Unlike in a situation where a
computer system is being attacked by someone dialing in with a modem, the
firewall can act as an effective ``phone tap'' and tracing tool. Firewalls
provide an important logging and auditing function; often they provide
summaries to the administrator about what kinds and amount of traffic passed
through it, how many attempts there were to break into it, etc. There is tons of info on google regarding firewalls. Don´t delete your anti.-virus just yet...and tell your friend to stop giving you bad advice Smile

Posted: Wed Sep 15, 2004 1:10 am Post subject:

Physical firewalls are great, if you need them. I think I need a physical one as I connect several machines to the Net and therefore would have to have software FW's on each machine otherwise. If the physical one is better...? I do not know for sure, never had an instrusion (that I know of).

Antivirus software is a completely other story. IMO your friend is a loony. Most viruses are "catched" through download from the net. Firewalls do not help at all there, You actually download it yourself, or click a linkm or get an email with an attached virii file... The FW will not help AT ALL, as far as I know.

/Akely

Posted: Wed Sep 15, 2004 1:30 am Post subject:

Yeah i did mention to him that i didnt think it was wise to run no av software at all! I am in need of an upgrade and wasnt going to do so untill i found out more! And i too have 3 pc's, and all are due for subscripcrtion renewal i was hoping to save a couple of hundred $, looks like im still broke for a while! thanks guys Smile

Whats best AV sofware going round?

Posted: Wed Sep 15, 2004 1:32 am Post subject:

I always like AVG from Grisoft. they have a free beta version, It´s pretty reliable.

Posted: Wed Sep 15, 2004 1:53 am Post subject:

At home I use a wired/wireless router/firewall/vpn device as the gateway. All machines on the network have AV software installed and auto updating.

Leg Humper Joined: 16 Jan 2002 Posts: 5474

I am not exactly certain what you mean by Physical firewall. All software has to run on physical hardware. My assumption is that you mean a firewall appliance, or a dedicated firewall. The difference being a firewall applicance would be similiar to a router with firewall capabilities (example: NOKIA Firewall,). I think you may also mean just a dedicated firewall, instead of installing a software firewall application on your existing windows computer, you would set up another computer; trim, tight, and configurable as a firewall. (example: Sun Sparc5 running Solaris 7 with Checkpoint FW-1) .

The examples I provided are devices I've used and been pleased with their results. I could also recommend the Netopia integrated firewall/router devices.

Posted: Wed Sep 15, 2004 5:27 am Post subject:

Just installed a Watchguard Firebox for the rack and loving it. This is the appliance i've had dreams about. I'm not done fully configuring it and testing it yet, it's still in "developmental" stage, but over the weekend i moved my LAN to it's "trusted port," and everything seems to work perfectly and several tests show it's doing what it's supposed to do.

Why do i like it so much, all firewalling/IDS aspects of my network LAN, WAN, public servers and private servers, are controlled from one central interface.

--- You should almost always have an AV program installed on your PC. Sure a FW will hinder the spread of a virus, and in a few cases, prevent the infection, but i would NEVER trust a firewall to protect me from viruii. You can use some firewall's as a proxy so that mail attachments are stripped, but this strips all, not just infected. Also, some firewalls have an AV capability built into them. I have yet to decide if this is a good thing as i've never used it.

Posted: Wed Sep 15, 2004 5:35 am Post subject:

Your poll should include D all of the above. Laughing

Posted: Wed Sep 15, 2004 7:13 am Post subject:

I run a physical firewall, antivirus, and Windows Firewall.

The two have absolutely nothing to do with the other. A Physical firewall, NAT router, (or firewall appliance as Quijbe calls it) keeps people out that haven't already had a connection initiated from the inside, it does absolutely nothing to block inside out connections.

Yes, the firewall will keep people from putting a virii on your machine through some type of exploit, but will do nothing to block email or web based virii that you download.

5 times · Posted: Mon Sep 11, 2006 12:02 am Post subject:

uhm, bump
(while looking for something else)

I run a hard firewall to protect hackers from getting into some new exploit in the OS
plus i have 12 computers, so I need a spreader for the network

AV definitely. a firewall won't stop you downloading something that is damaged and hacked

plus I run ZoneAlarm, which is for the reverse psychology of stopping programs on my machine from getting out to the internet without me knowing about it.
if something gets in in-advertantly, zonealarm won't let it out without asking me for permission first.

Posted: Mon Sep 11, 2006 3:11 am Post subject:

Posted: Sat Sep 30, 2006 8:58 pm Post subject:

Digging up bones Shocked

Posted: Sun Oct 01, 2006 9:19 am Post subject:

Greetings,

I will be different so please put down your fruit and other items to throw at me...

I use a hardware firewall and my choice is WatchGuard. As for software firewalls, I am of the opinion that the integrated firewall for Windows XP SP2 is just fine. I used ZoneAlarm in the past but find it absolutely horrible and invasive. Sure there is a training period but it gets old...fast. I have also had connection issues and compatibility problems with ZoneAlarm and software that I use.

I am not much of a conspiricist, but I do think all of this Internet Security and software firewall stuff is a scam. I would almost go as far to say that AV software is a scam, but if you are one to download files or receive e-mails with attachments that you plan to open you NEED AV software.

Basically if a file from another system is downloaded or copied to your system, you need to have it scanned. Keep in mind that for a virus to work, the file must be executed, accessed or opened.

The virus attacks are designed to exploit known holes in Office and Windows software (and media players as well). If properly patched, the virus attack is not as effective (depending on the efficacy of the patch). The problem are the attacks on exploits known only to the attackers. AV software may not have these definitions ready so one may not be fully protected.

Bottom line from me: use a hardware firewall, enable the Windows firewall and use an antivius software (just a plain AV software, not a security suite). Most importantly, check for updates on your Windows, Office, media software (iTines, Quicktime, Real Player, Winamp, ect...) and patch them as needed.

Stray Dog Joined: 18 Aug 2005 Posts: 43 Location: Texas

I've played around with a few firewalls... only one I somewhat liked was Kerio, but it wasn't great at customizing access/program rules so I eventually chucked it.

Whatever you may call it, I only run with a hardware firewall inside my router, and haven't bothered with a software-based one in a fairly long time. AV and two anti-everything-ware programs are a must though in my book, if you use the internet at all on the machine.