|
|
Jerry Hey wrote:
Dale, is the firewall recommended even if I seldom leave the computer on if I am not working with it? If the browser and e-mail applications are not booted, can the computer still be penetrated? Jerry
Jerry, the typical time between connecting to the net and getting hack attempts is in the range of minutes. A newly installed and unpatched Windows box will typical be owned in less than 5. Most of the attacks are trying to set your machine up as a 'zombie' that the hacker can control remotely to attack other computers.
A central tenent of security is to take away all rights to access that are not explicitly needed. A hardware firewall implements this rule nicely, in that the exposed system doesn't even have the ability to do most things a general personal computer can do. You can't break something that isn't there. The software firewall, while better than nothing, makes things a lot 'muckier'. The hackers can break into an unrelated piece of code to get where they want you to be (bent over).
Personally, I think it a crime that the network providers don't include a simple firewall, caching DNS, and NAT DHCP server in the modems they provide. It'd cost them less than $10 to include it in the same box, and I'd gladly pay an extra $40 upfront to not have the multple wire and wall-warts all over the place. But I guess that would cut into their 'in-home networking' business.
--
,|"|"|, |
----===<{{(oQo)}}>===---- Dyke Delta |
o| d |o www.ernest.isa-geek.org |
|
|