Zone Alarm and Wifi?

Alright...Well I have bene using Zone Alarm for some time now. I just recently got my laptop though and I noticed the other day when I open it up it says it hasn't blocked any threats or anything...Is this because my router has a firewall built in or what could be the problem?

 

theres a problem not having any 'attacks' not being blocked?

But seriously, having a router does block alot of possible attacks, so its fine that there isn't a number there.

 

Once I got a switch at home (years ago) that only allowed the incoming ports that I specified, I got rid of ZoneAlarm.

 

Well I was just curiuos because I know on my desktop it blocked hundreds a day. And by the way, for a minute I shut down ZoneAlarm and turned on Windows Firewall to see. Then when I turned ZoneAlarm back on it start blocking things...Kinda odd.

 

I'm certainly no expert at such things, but this seems risky if you have more than one machine on your home network. Especially so if you have any wireless access to your LAN.

How do you prevent cross-machine infections within your network and/or prevent someone who does gain access to your internal network from compromising other machines?

How do you prevent unauthorized outbound traffic?

 

IMO, every network security scenario is a balance between what security measures are needed and how much effort it takes (or security vs usability). In my case, I wasn't really concerned enough with internal compromise to take the effort of securing outbound ports and the machines from each other. Granted, I don't use open shares between machines and extraneous services are disabled, but I wasn't going to spend that extra bit making sure the machines were isolated enough from each other.

 

I bet you don't have a teenager in the house, either...

If I didn't have other, less careful family members using computers within the home network I'd likely be a little more lax on internal security as well.

The other thing people need to consider is whether they'll be using their laptop in an unsecured environment such as a coffee house or on campus. You'll want to protect yourself to the gills in such instances.

-- Lew

 

Not yet, but I totally see where you're coming from.

 

Yep, I only keep ZoneAlarm on my laptop to secure it when I connect to foreign networks. No other PC on my LAN has any firewall, since they are all behind a router.

 

Router with firewall is a good solution but it does not allow program interaction controll and does not help you manage access premissions.

Besides routers usually have basic firewalls that are not too secure- they will do against automatic progs but thats all- and unless you have a good software solution, once thr security of your network has been compromised all computers on LAN are at great risc.

I'd stick to both program and ardware firewall (I do actually )- simple benefit- advanced program controll lets you decide/warns you when unknown module wants to connect to internet even via legit app. That's a protection against trojans unknown to AV soft. ZA also blocks fragments so it does prevent a lot of serious threats and I don't know does my router do this. And software is upgradable- that's more than firmware upgrade can do.

 

Been using Zone Alarm for years even before wifi became popular. I use my laptop a lot on the public library's wireless. Never had a security problem <knock wood>