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Firewalls |
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Personal Firewall
Capabilities
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Surfing the Internet today has
its potential dangers, especially if you haven’t
protected the security of your computer.
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Closing up any
potential security holes with a personal firewall is one
of the most important things that you can do to maintain
the proper functioning of your computer.
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Installing a personal
firewall, or desktop firewall, can prevent potential
danger to your machine by blocking the entrance if an
unwanted intruder.
Personal firewalls are software applications designed
for use on a single machine. They are designed to
protect the computer form invasions of spyware, adware,
and malware. In particular, computers that have a
constant open door to the Internet are susceptible to
these intruders unless they have a firewall in place.
Personal firewalls are designed to ensure that Internet
communications are secure. They set up barriers
prohibiting hackers and offensive websites from gaining
access to your computer. Personal firewalls filter the
information that enters or exits your machine through
filters that the computer user presets. The preset
filters are used for all Internet transmissions.
Personal firewalls use one of three basic methods to
filter the information that is transmitted to and from
the Internet. The methods are referred to as proxy
service, packet filtering, and stateful inspection.
The retrieval of information for transmission on the
Internet is known as proxy service. The personal
firewall is entirely responsible for the sending of
information back and forth.
Packet filtering refers to the process of analyzing
small chunks of data against preset filters to determine
whether it may enter or exit your machine. The chunks
that pass this test will be allowed to pass through the
system.
Stateful inspection uses comparison to determine which
information will be allowed to transmit. In this
process, only the key parts of the information are
compared. These parts are compared to a predetermined
and trusted base of information.
With a personal firewall, you can set up filters that
are used to determine what type of information enters or
exits your system, as well as limiting the ports of
access. Personal firewalls allow each user to customize
their filters to the level of security they wish to have
on their system.
If the filters are set for the highest level of
security, this restricts quite a bit of the Internet
use. On the other hand, if the filters are set for the
lowest level of security, very little restriction
results. Filters can be employed on ports, IP addresses,
protocols, and domain names. Customizing the filters
requires setting the levels of control for these
separate areas.
Ports are necessary to make the services of the server
available and for use of the Internet. Each of the ports
has an identifying number.
Protocols refer to the manner in which communication
will take place. Protocols include the following: FTP,
IP, HTTP, TCP, SMTP, SNMP, UDP, ICMP, AND Telnet.
Each and every computer on the Internet has an IP
addresses assigned to it. The firewall can block traffic
to or from a particular IP address.
Domain names are the user-friendly identifiers for IP
addresses. A specific domain name can be blocked access
to the computer system.
Personal firewalls attempt to block the following:
viruses, remote logins, application backdoors, spam,
source routing, operating system bugs, macros, e-mail
bombs, and redirect bombs.
Personal firewalls cut down on the malicious programs
that enter your computer.
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This alone makes it
worth the effort of purchase and installation. However,
before you install your personal firewall, check your
computer to see if one already exists. Some operating
systems already have a personal firewall incorporated.
You will need to uninstall any existing firewall before
you install a new one.
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