Firewall & Personal Firewall - FAQ

What is a firewall?
A firewall or a personal firewall is a choke point which controls traffic by allowing or disallowing traffic from getting from one place to another, based on certain lists, rules and parameters. There are many types of firewalls and personal firewalls and since our focus of is on home users and businesses that don't have professional IT staff, we'll concentrate on technologies that support these areas. The term firewall was borrowed from the construction industry where barriers are built that are intended to slow or stop the advancement of the fire. Essentially, that is what data firewalls do as well, try to contain the firestorm of malicious traffic on the Internet.

I'm not on-line that much, do I need a firewall?
Whether you have a full time "always on" connection to the Internet with a DSL or cable modem or just occasionally connect, a firewall is the first line of defense. This very important tool will provide protection no matter how much time you are on the Internet. A properly configured firewall will help keep you from being scanned and vulnerable to these types of attacks as well as keeping the computer from communicating illicitly.

What kind of firewall do I need?
There are hardware and software firewalls. For home users, remote employees and smaller businesses the personal firewall or software firewall is probably the best choice. All of the products on this site have very good reputations and extensive security experience and support. Hardware firewalls are typically used for larger networks and have more features, levels of security and capability or throughput .

Does the firewall stop viruses?
Firewalls are designed first to stop malicious traffic, a function they perform best. The answer can be given by looking at history and remembering the "I love you" or "Code Red" or pick your virus de-jour. These went right past some of the best firewalls in the world and have brought entire networks to their knees. There is no silver bullet and that is the reason why so many companies with specialized products like firewalls, anti-virus, anti-hacker, and intrusion detection exist.

How does the firewall and personal firewall work?
The firewall watches network connections. Parameters or rules are set for these connections. You must train the firewall to understand your programs and connections. Once the parameters are set, any other traffic from new programs good or bad, generates a flag to the user to ask if the traffic should be allowed. Over time the firewall is tuned and the user gets to where they can tell if the traffic is legitimate or not.

If the firewall will block bad traffic, why do I need anti hacker and anti virus tools?
Fact is, a personal firewall won't tell you too much about the file in your machine that is trying to make a connection TO the outside world or listening for a connection FROM the outside world. You might be able to learn the name of the file but that will be it. Computer security requires different tools because they do different things.

So how do I know if it is the real program trying to connect or not?
Great question! First put on your Sherlock hat and use deductive reasoning. For example; Is it a program that you had running? If so, did you just instruct the program to do something? Is the program name familiar? If the answer to these questions is NO then you might want to break out the anti-hacker and anti virus tools and get it solved!