I have a network that is comprised of both a router that connects four hardwired PC's and a wireless access point that connects to the router and services several laptops, a Sony PSP and a pocket PC via a wireless connection.
The system works and has no problems. The various computers can all access the Internet and share files with the other computers.
But Zone Alarm logs a significant number of attempts by the wireless access point 192.168.1.245 to access my personal PC (it is hardwired to the router. Zone Alarm blocks these attempted connections.
My guess is that the WAP is either doing a port scan or it is trying to send a log file to my PC. My question is: Is it safe to put the address for the wireless access point in the "Trusted Zone" as I have done with the other computers in my network or could that compromise the security on my network?
How about this one: Windows firewall is every bit as vulnerable as any other software firewall, so what does it matter? In INTLLIGENT hands, ZA is marginally better, because it *attempts* to regulate outgoing traffic as well. And yes, I know, a GOOD bit of Malware can easily circumvent ZA, but there is a WHOLE lot of poorly programmed stuff out there that ZA will catch.
From the articles that I have read, the consensus among the people who spend their days with computer security issues is that Zone Alarm is a better firewall than what comes with XP. I know there are people who think that the XP firewalls is adequate and even though it does not attempt to block outgoing connections that a smart malware can tunnel around Zone Alarms outgoing blocking efforts.
Overall, I have had good luck with Zone Alarm. It works well with Wall Watcher and I am somewhat familiar with it.
The problem with most of the "Personal Firewalls" is, that they're not only adding additional risk to a PC in theory, because they're adding extra possibly vulnerable code.
The problem is, that so many concepts of "Personal Firewalls" are design flaws, and that many features even are counterproductive, not to mention the doubtful implementations we see today.
So unfortunately it matters, because Windows-Firewall has none of these problems.
I doubt that. And if it would be true - then ZA is useless, because in intelligent hands, there are much better possibilities to secure computer systems, and the main target group of Zone Alarm are not "intelligent hands", say: technicians, but customers of the type "home user who just wants to be secured and does not want to know anything whats going on technically".
Yes.
You said "in intelligent hands". In intelligent hands, dumb malware is not running on the PC of these hands. For a home user, Zone Alarm is at least useless, if she/he can use the Windows-Firewall, too.
I'd like to see one (in words "one") technical reason why that would be. C'mon, just one single reason. Can't be that hard if all those "people who spend their days with computer security issues" are right.
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59-spending his days with FIXING computer security issues-cobalt
Duane, I agree that I'm not going to get an answer here, but this is also a Zone Alarm question. It appears that it has ignited the battle of the firewalls again.
Within my experience with Zone Alarm, I have watched it block outgoing connection from various programs that I don't want calling home whenever they desire. It has stopped programs from trying to act as a server on the Internet too.
Most of this software is benign in nature, but it can take up bandwidth. Some of it is spyware and a lot of that is included with computer games.
On my nephew's computer, his computer games were installing all sorts of minor malware that was constantly trying to call home. Zone Alarm not only blocked these programs but it also alerted me to the fact that I needed to get them off the computer.
But since some computer games will not install or run without installing these programs, all I have to do with Zone Alarm is to block the outgoing connections and the programs become harmless.
Another factor is that around the world, Microsoft products are the targets of producers of malware. Though there have been attacks on other systems, the vast majority of exploited security flaws are on MS products.
That is why I don't use MS Internet Explorer and why I think that third party applications are less vulnerable to attack.
Secondly, Microsoft has not exactly been a world leader in computer security. In fact, most MS software has a third party competitor out there that is better.
The reason that I selected Zone Alarm is because it consistently is rated #1 for personal firewalls and because those folks who deal with security issues daily suggest that we all use a personal firewall.
Use the XP firewall if that is what you want, don't use any firewall at all if that is your choice. Go form a new sect of Islam where the MS firewall is your prophet. It really does not matter to me.
The answer as to how you should set ZA to deal with the WAP will be gotten over there in the wireless NG as they have Top Guns over there that know ZA too. If the 192.168.1.245 is the device IP of the WAP device, then I would think you should accept it but I don't know for sure for the situation. If it was the device IP of the router, then I would for sure tell you to accept the device IP of the router so ZA wouldn't bark.
Yes. All the programs like Adobe Reader it better should not block Try this one:
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It is proof of concept code to show, that Zone Alarm is very easy to fool. It uses Active Desktop to phone home, without Zone Alarm cipping in.
Yes. You _think_ that Zone Alarm blocked all traffic, because Zone Alarm claims to do so. And because it can be fooled very easily, you never will know. You even don't know if those programs, which were alerted by Zone Alarm, were additionally "phoning home" successfully, additionally to the show Zone Alarm made for you.
Maybe. As a matter of fact, I'm not trusting into Microsoft as a producer of highly secure systems. This is the reason, why I'm tying this on a Macintosh keyboard into tin (my newsreader), which is running on a Slowlaris box.
But it is impossible already in theory, while you're using a Windows kernel on your machine, no extra software can "secure" the kernel itself. So if you're not trusting into code from Microsoft, then why are you using Windows?
It will not work to add something to make it secure.
I'm dealing with security issues daily. Most of the people I know who are so, too, are loughing about Zone Alarm and the other "Personal Firewalls". Most of them in the club (I'm doing some work within the Chaos Computer Club from time to time) even don't understand, why to talk about this ridiculous stuff at all.
I'm thinking different. I'm thinking, that people have to know, that "Personal Firewalls" are a big show only.
I already answered it correctly. If you don't want to see behind the curtain, you only will see the show effects. Have fun.
You're probably fighting a losing battle there. ZA will not render those programs harmless, in fact, quite the contrary. It will simply prevent some (not necessarily all) of them from connecting out, but they are still running and who knows what the heck else they are doing to your system. The outbound connection is only the tip of the iceberg. The only real solution is to prevent their install to begin with, but if this is not possible, then you might as well just let the machine froth at the mouth and be done with it. ZA is just adding more overhead to it without really helping much.
These programs are a lot more destructive if they can call home. If nothing else, Zone Alarm stops most of from spreading. To be honest, I don't get much malware. My anti-virus, anti-spam, and anti-malware software keep my system very clean. After I uninstalled both Bit Defender and Spy Sweeper, Zone Alarm notified me that both were continuing to call home. Both were communicating with their respective update servers as well as sending system information to their vendors.
I had the same problem with Norton products several years ago. Despite being uninstalled using the Norton uninstall utility, these programs continued to call home with great regularity.
I was able to use Zone Alarm to locate the offending software and remove it manually. Without Zone Alarm I would not have any idea what they were up to.
As I said before, the most problems that we discover are on my Nephew's computer and his computer games appear to be the worst offenders. I use Zone Alarm to isolate his computer from the rest of the network. Zone Alarm also does a great job of keeping the spyware that comes with these games from calling home.
There are a lot of differing opinions regarding software firewalls. It is evident that even the best hardware appliances can't keep out all the threats. So I research the problem and do what I think is best, to date I think that Zone Alarm is a better option that the XP firewall.
There are a lot of folks in the industry who agree and there are those who don't.
I used them here for years, but late last year, I bought a cheap wireless NAT router so I could have 2 computers share the cable connection here. Since then, I have removed the software firewalls that I used to use. I am now so happy that I have the router. I suppose somehow somewhere someone could (perhaps) break thru the router and get in from the outside, but I have not seen it happen yet, and I personally doubt it ever will. In my mind, the chances are greater that someone could get thru a software firewall as they are more prone to bugs and problems with config. I don't worry about outbound at all, since I keep it clean here and it just isn't an issue.
But if you prefer ZA then fine. I prefer not to load up on tons of security software and apps and just use some common sense and keep the stuff off to start with. You should see some of the people on the security forums... they must be running 2 dozen security apps. It's ridiculous. I suspect that's all they use their machine for most of the time.
I have a NAT router too which will pass the Gibson Research Shields Up test without Zone Alarm even running.
My system is not overloaded with security software. I have NOD32 for anti-virus duty, I use the MS Anti-Spyware beta (formerly Giant) and Ewido for the really hard case Malware bugs.
While conversing in this thread, I have found numerous sources that appear to be knowledgeable that claim that the so-called personal firewalls are indeed a waste of time and money. Some claim that they actually make a system more vulnerable. They might be right.
But I also found just as many people writing that software firewalls, such as Zone Alarm, are useful and valuable applications. They might be right too.
While Volker suggested that the Windows XP firewall was the right one to use, this firewall consistently gets some of the worst reviews on the web from both its users and the people in the industry who test these applications.
Even though Volker says that outbound checking is not needed, the word is that the new MS firewall will indeed check for outbound connections.
One of the things that I like about Zone Alarm is that it can be setup to quarantine certain file attachments that arrive in email. That might be a minor plus to some people, yet it can keep a lot of dangerous garbage out of your email and the email of the kids too.
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