A question for everyone...

[sinjun]

Network security ...

Okay, so I have this home network right?

what security do I need. Have a physical router to begin with ... but other than that, what security features should I have?

Anyone volunteer to help out?

Comments

[courtly.livejournal.com]

Read up on your router. Odds are that most of them provide firewalling which will stop most of your problems, including port-scanning. If you start deliberately poking holes in that firewall, then you'd best firewall the computers which can be accessed through those individual holes. (There are a number of free and workable software firewall systems).

[damara.livejournal.com]

Cool. Thanks very much!

How about Linux and firewalls?

And what ones are good with Win 2K? Or does it matter which version of Windows I'm running.

[courtly.livejournal.com]

It really depends on the holes you open in your router's firewall. Gibson Research... (grc.com) has a web-app (free) which scans your ports for you online to see what's closed and what's vulnerable. It can help you figure out what you need to close down.

As for firewalls on win2k, I used TinyPersonalFirewall (From Tiny Software - http://www.tinysoftware.com) which is free and works like a charm but it can bug you quite a bit for the first little bit (basically, if you set it up in the middle of 3 security settings, it asks you about EVERY unknown bit of traffic on your system, incoming or outgoing. You specifically have to allow or deny (deny is the default), and you can set up a rule so that it doesn't ask you about it again. So for the first few days, you'll have that window popping up whenever any application tries to get out of your computer - the LJ Client, Windows Update, IE, etc. etc. etc.

But after that it runs GREAT.

I'm afraid I can't comment on Linux firewalls, but I KNOW you'll find some free software if you just poke around.

[arwen77.livejournal.com]

Hey there.

Linux has a firewall more or less built right into it. It is usually configured with the command ipfwadm. Look in /usr/doc/howto/ or similar for the ipfwadm howto file, which gives you a quick look at both simple and more advanced ways of firewalling both the Linux computer, or using it as a masquerading NAT firewall for your entire network.

But, as Someone(TM) says, your router likely has some firewall capability, if it's not a modular 'single task' router, made for the addition of a hardware firewall in addition to the router.