Why ZoneAlarm firewall?
Jan 08, 2007 1:57 PM
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In addition, if we considered that every time more holes of security in our explorers are discovered, it is no wonder we begin to worry about the integrity of the contents that we received. With the intention to palliate the negative effects that entail the illegal accesses to the systems, the wished traffic of archives and post office and as opposed to not to offer protection Trojans and diverse attacks that we can suffer while we are online, the Firewall calls have been constituted like the tools of security par excellence essential to accede calmly to Internet, with a minimum of security.
Firewall acts like shield or protective obstacle locating itself between the local area network deprived (LAN) and the network to which we want to accede, is it the Intranet of the company or Internet, of the possible aggressions that come from the outside of these, and therefore it must count at least on two interfaces: one that gives to the private area and other than serves public section, for example Internet.
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Firewall can be of two types. If it is of type hardware, it could be in some cases he himself of router that it is placed between the Ethernet connection to Internet and the rest of the network or a specific device of protection. If it is of software type will be able to be used not only to protect a deprived network, but to limit the access Internet of the equipment of this network, for example by schedules and users. Although in critical surroundings it will be necessary to invest a great amount of money in our security, good fire-resistant personnel by software will be sufficient for “armoring” our computer in most of the cases. In the following pages we are going away to center in the fire-resistant ones of individual use ZoneAlarm, based on software and focused the private user.
What is firewall?
The main task that firewall makes is to examine all the packages that enter the deprived network, coming from the outside, as well as those that they leave the same one towards the public network. Following rules that the administrator of the system must choose carefully, it is allowed to filter the packages that enter and leave our computer allowing which they reach his destiny, or rejecting them and eliminating them, along with something very important, to hide himself at sight of scanners of ports and rest of users of Internet with which we have not selected or we have established a connection.
In other words, one is in charge to camouflage our machine, returning it invisible before any tool search that tries to find the “heel of Aquila’s” of the connected computers to Internet and to enter them taking advantage of any unprotected weak point the system or the network. Its second objective is to control the traffic of data between the PC and the network in which it is connected, denying request for information’s and/or connection not asked for by us with which we were able to move anonymously by the network. This way, our data will be out of danger and the privacy will be assured, preventing for example the reception of publicity no wished to the time that we will be protected against the attacks that can be suffered. In addition, all this information will have to be registered of ordered form, so that it is possible to be examined later with facility, helping to determine quickly if an attack and from where has been taken place came.
Do we need firewall?
Whenever we have a private network that it is going to connect to a public network, the protection is needed that fire-resistant ones offer. The ADSL connections and the connections through modem by cable represent an important change in the form in which they will have to consider the small companies and the homes, their security in Internet. With the connections by modem of marked or RDSI, the user always it knew when it was in line and its security resided in being hidden between the multitude of connections that came together between dynamic direction IP of their ISP. Everything what needed is a scanned tool of ports, to make sure that nobody tried to accede directly to its PC.
And, by all means, it only had some risk when it was connected to the network. But when somebody connects through ADSL or modem by cable, the things change, because as of that moment, instead of initiating a connection whenever something of the Network is needed, is even arranged like minimum of a permanent connection of long distance on an assigned direction IP dynamically, or with an own set of static directions IP and dominions.
As result the user must solve his problem which a company faces contracted lines and, in addition, with a budget much more limited. So the final question is should you or should you not buy ZoneAlarm, we will tell you that you should because you will be much safer on internet especially if you have ADSL or any other connection which is connected 24h a day on internet.
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