Multimedia :: Firewall & Antivirus For DSL

Quote

However, since I have an always-on cable modem, even it I do not have a web browser running, my system is still connected, I believe.

To the best of my knowledge, you are correct. I have always had dial-up but instructed my daughter, when she went to college and switched to DSL, that she was to unplug her CAT5 from her modem whenever she was not using the internet.

If you configure your DSL "host allow" setings and "host deny" setings correctly it is virtualy impenitrable to external attacks. So you can sleep well with your network still pluged in

or if you have a router your router's config setings will most likely allow you to block all ports and some include blocking pings, makeing your computer invisable to would be hackers. Also DSL I belive comes witl all ports but SSH blocked to any exteral network by default, so even if you just run from CD it will be fairly safe. Linux is in my openion the safest and most reliible OS in the world and we can all feel safe with our computers runing 24/7 as mine does

Thanks for your time,
Andrew

(I know my spelling sucks heh =/)

All of this is true.

Unfortunately, the biggest security risk comes from social engineered trojans and other highjack code that people encounter by clicking on email attachments and by visiting certain websites especially with certain insecure web browsers.

Linux is generally immune from these because:

1) The email and web browsers are usually started up as normal user-owned processes instead of root processes. This limits the amount of damage that can be done by the bad guys.

2) Most of the trojans/spyware out there are written for win32 computers and cannot perform their intended function when launched from a linux email or web-browser program.

Hopefully, these statements remain true for the forseeable future and linux will maintain a reputation for better sucurity.

Because all of the security in the world is lost if Mr. Trojan Maker can convince Mr. Dumb User to install his evil malware somehow, or if Mr. Dumb User decides to run his e-mail client or web browser as user "root".

I'm on cable, but everything runs through a locked-down hardware firewall/router, so that's one less worry.

So how's fprot go for scanning and cleaning windoze drives? You know those situations where you get a windoze virus, it's detected by your virus checker, but it can't be removed for some reason or other, so you spend a day trying to figure out how to rid your system of said virii...
Would be good to have a dsl extension that could diagnose and repair such an occurrance. And for the paranoid, they could scan their DSL system just to prove to themselves that everything is still hunky-dory.

For newer Windows users, they would need both Antivirus + captiventfs in order to repair files.

I don't know if fprot can do this from linux.

Next Page...
original here.