Personal firewalls
August 25, 2006
South Africa’s Mail and Guardian reports a review of 6 personal firewalls, finding that they are mostly useless because:
- the computer is attempting to be a firewall while carrying out its normal functions
- they can be easily switched off, so offending programs can easily send unwanted data to the internet
- browsers connect to the internet anyway, so hackers can use the inherent problems with browsers to circumvent the firewall
- more important are the safety habits of the user: careful reviewing of emails and accessing of web sites
- configuring the firewall is beyond most users’ capability
- "Not one of the six firewall programs the magazine tested, regardless of whether commercial or freeware, could prevent all attempts from the test programs at establishing outgoing connections between the PC and the internet."
D-Link All-In-One Network Security Device
July 25, 2006
D-Link have released a small device which provides firewall, anti-virus, anti-spam, pop-up blocker, parental control, and identity protection. It comes with licenses to protect up to 4 computers. It sounds like a great way of ensuring all of your computers are kept secure, and removes the need for each computer to have collection of software tools running to keep them secure.
http://www.dlink.com/products/?sec=1&pid=486
The device was voted Best in Show at CNET’s CES 2006 in the Networking category:
http://www.cnet.com/4520-11405_1-6398234-1.html?tag=rcol
http://www.cnet.com/4831-11405_1-6412641.html?tag=next
Amazon.com is selling it for $USD94.99. If it works as advertised it sure would be helpful!
Security concerns causing cutback on internet use
October 6, 2005
The Gartner Group has published a report saying that 42% of users are cutting back on internet use due to security concerns, which has had flow-on effects for online banking and e-commerce.
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