SolveYourProblem
Article Series: Spyware
Gid Rid of Spyware on My System
Firewalls:
How Can It Protect Your Computer?
The
whole point of a firewall is to completely isolate your computer
from the Internet. Everything that passes in or
out of your computer hits this wall to see if it can pass
or needs to be blocked. The information that passes through
a computer is made up of packets. Each packet is given from
one machine to another in a network. So the connections computer
savvy people talk about are merely the passing of packets
of information to and from other computers. This is used
to send or receive a packet of information no matter if one
computer is two feet or in another country from the destination
computer. Every Internet packet has to have an address and
port to go to. It must also have the port and IP address
that it is being sent from to be recognized by the other
computer. It is the same as having a letter with the address
it is going to and the address of who sent it.
Firewall
software inspects these packets of information as they
try to pass through. As the data arrives at your computer
the firewall looks at it before any other program on your computer.
If the packet looks suspicious it can deny entry to the rest
of the computer so infection can be avoided. A port is only
open when the first arriving packet tries to connect. If it
is ignored or denied the port is now closed and nothing else
can get into it. It is a great tool to have because it is very
selective about what it will allow in and what it blocks. It
can recognize IP addresses and know which ones are safe and
which ones are not. What this means is when you are running
on a specific port all information can only come through that
port and no others. Even if you had a trojan that opened a
listening port it would not be able to be detected do to the
fact the its port could not be accessed. The firewall would
block the signal.
Many people like to build secure tunnels through the Internet
to pass information to and from with out being intercepted.
This can be very easy to accomplish using a firewall. No unauthorized
traffic will be able to get any access to the information sent
in this tunnel. All you have to do is instruct the firewall
to allow connections from specific ports only from a particular
IP address to yours. This will allow only those two computers
to see that open port. No other machine will be able to detect
the open port at all. You don’t have to worry about accidentally
blocking the entire net from your computer. Your firewall knows
the difference between browsing and unwanted connections. The
firewall will allow you to keep communicating with a particular
site and still reject other sites from connecting to you. It
can distinguish between an existing connection and a new one.
You
can also get an extra firewall made for application level
filtering. This adds tremendous protection for your computer.
Their job to permit and deny based on IP addresses. It doesn’t
read the packets of information but does have a dialogue with
the incoming server to identify it. This firewall protects
the port that houses all your secure information like passwords,
usernames, and credit card information. It is password based
and unlike a regular firewall that allows a password work cracker
to keep working on it till it figures it out, this one only
allows three tries. An intelligent application level firewall
can watch port 139 where this information is housed and completely
block any unknown computer from getting it. It will automatically
black list the attacking IP address to prevent any future attempts
from that IP address. The best way to access a good firewall
is with an excellent anti-virus and/or anti-spyware program.
Most anti-virus programs come with highly sophisticated firewalls
that can do wonders in protecting your computer. There are
plenty of companies that will sell you just a firewall without
having to change anti-virus protection as well. A firewall,
as simple as it may sound, can offer you a tremendous amount
of safety when connected to the Internet.
# # # # #
SolveYourProblem.com : 2007
> Home > Spyware Articles:
Main Page |
