posted
I haven't had much too say here lately, but this suggestion came to me. For those of you who have an "always on" high speed internet connections like Cable or DSL (or T1 & T3 lines if you're lucky enough), you are quite a bit more vulnerable to security breaches than most. The higher bandwidth and static IP address make a tempting target for hackers. To combat this, it is a good idea to install a personal firewall on your computer. If you don't know what a firewall is, basically, it monitors the network packets coming to and from your computer and determines if they should be forwarded to their destination.
It is relatively simple to use (especially compared to some of the other firewall software), and best of all, it's free. First of all, it asks you if you want to allow unrequested connections to your computer from the internet as they happen. So it gives you control over things OUTSIDE of your computer.
Also, you set the permissions for each program that wants to access the internet (it will tell you which programs are trying), and you can either set it to allow or disallow. You can also set whether a program will ALWAYS be allowed, NEVER be allowed, or just to ask you every time. This type of security also stops any trojan horse programs from INSIDE your computer that hackers use, since the trojan horse will try to access the internet and it will be stopped by the firewall and ask you if you want to grant permission. Since you don't know what that program is, you deny it (and then clean your system) It also can log any alerts that come up.
Once you've set your permissions, you don't really even think about it anymore until an alert pops up occassionally asking you what to do.
I don't mean to sound like an advertisement here, but I thought since it's free and so important, why not...
It will also work on a dial-up connection, if you want to know which programs are accessing the net and what not, and will provide the same security measures, but you don't have as much to worry about as always-on connections do.
Printer-friendly view of this topic