Firewall Question

[Miles]

I recently installed a Linksys BEFSR41 v.2 router to be used in conjunction with an Alcatel Speed Touch ADSL Home Modem...Have read a few posts about the hardware firewall provided with the Router...some say it's good, some say it's not. and a few run software firewalls in addition to the Router...I don't have enough experience yet to know...What do you think?

[mcdonald43]

Miles,
I Run an SMC Router/Firewall/Print Server in conjunction with Norton Internet Security. What I've noticed is that Norton indicates a much lower frequency if blockage notifications after the router was installed compared to before. This tells me that some things are still making it through the hardware, but that the software is flagging at least some of them.

HTH
Mike

[Miles]

Hey thanks Michael that's what I thought, think I'll go back to Zone Alarm.

[mcdonald43]

Miles,
I am NOT an authority on such things and have only had the Router several days, but Norton has been much less annoying in the last several days. My SMC uses NAT as a Firewall and some of the others I looked at had Stateful Packet Inspection?, but were much more expensive. This should mean better protection, I think. My philosophy is to err on the safe side where possible.
Regards,
Mike

[Miles]

I totally agree Mike, I back up and running with Zone Alarm, I'm very familiar with it, and the reviewers give it a very good rating.
Thanks again for your interest and help.

[Ranger_abx]

Stateful Packet Inspection is pretty cool stuff.

To save wear and tear on my fingers, here's Checkpoint's description

http://www.checkpoint.com/products/t...stateful1.html

And here's an independent test of Checkpoint's system

http://www.enteract.com/~lspitz/fwtable.html

Purty heavy stuff.

In my experience, there's no one best way to set up security. You have to look at how secure you want to be, how secure you actually need to be, and how much time and money you're willing to spend to get there.

The recommendations in this thread are like locking your door with a big secure padlock. They work great for the vast majority of people, and pretty much any home user. If you want sentry guns, infrared beams, and a moat full of alligators, you need to invest some serious study time and most likely upgrade to some data center quality network hardware or set up unix based gateways.

[FlippedBit]

The hardware firewall should block everything coming in. It cannot block spyware which gets loaded on your computer and pumps your personal info out to the internet. I use the SMC router/print server and it passed the ShieldsUp test. To also pass the LeakTest to ensure you are safe from spyware, you aso need a software firewall like ZoneAlarm. To run these tests go to http://grc.com/default.htm

Also read the thread in one of these forums entitled "Do you use protection" (or something like that.

[SKI]

FWIW I agree with CRC. Was going to suggest grc.com myself when I started reading this thread, but CRC got there 1st! The software firewall suggestion is also good: you'd be amazed how much stuff some "innocent" software (I mean YOU NORTON & CREATIVE) tries to sent out!
A friend of mine is running the Linksys router mentioned in the original post: he says it checks out great on grc.com. I've heard that some people have had trouble setting them up, but that's another kettle of fish entirely...