Re Norton firewall / WPA

WPA encryption is about as safe as you can get for preventing attacks via wireless and preventing wireless sniffing. However, it will do absolutely nothing to prevent attacks via the internet, or the usual accidentally downloaded trojan horse, worms, viruses, and assorted exploits. That's where Norton Firewall helps. Your first line of defense is your NAT firewall/router. However, if that's deemed insufficient, a "personal firewall" such as Norton Firewall can be added to the obstacle course.

Think of the wireless link as just providing a replacement for a cable between your router and your PC. If the wireless were replaced by an ethernet cable, would you still be safe? You decide.

Reply to
Jeff Liebermann
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As I have WPA encryption enabled on my wireless router do I need to keep Norton firewall on or am I fairly safe without it?

Many thanks Nigel

Reply to
hawklord

WPA is not machine level protection like a PFW solution is and WPA only encrypts traffic between the card and the router and prevents eavedropping of the traffic. That's the only protection WPA provides.

A PFW solution is not a FW it doesn't separate two networks. It's only machine level protection that protects the O/S, services and Internet programs/applications from attack when the machine is directly connected to the Internet or the machine is setting in a LAN environment.

The wireless NAT router doesn't have a FW either and at best it may have some FW like features like SPI and some other stuff. But a NAT router running SPI doesn't make the router an appliance that running a FW. However, the NAT router is good enough in the home protection by not forwarding unsolicited inbound requests to the machines as long as the user is not doing high risks things like port forwarding.

Duane :)

Reply to
Duane Arnold

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