Post 1195

by billso on Friday, 9 July 2004

Tech: Brian’s Buzz renamed Win­dows Secrets Newslet­ter: Win­dows XP Ser­vice Pack 2 is com­ing, includ­ing a new Win­dows Fire­wall pro­gram. Any cable modem or DSL user should also have a good hard­ware fire­wall. “The basic prob­lem with Win­dows Fire­wall is that it’s only half a solu­tion. Unlike most third party fire­walls — and unlike Microsoft’s enterprise-ready solu­tion, Inter­net Secu­rity and Accel­er­a­tion (ISA) Server — Win­dows Fire­wall only pro­tects against inbound net­work traf­fic. That means it does noth­ing to pre­vent adware or spy­ware that’s got­ten into your sys­tem from ‘phon­ing home’ or ini­ti­at­ing com­mu­ni­ca­tions with remote Inter­net ser­vices and Web sites. You might think this isn’t a prob­lem. Think again: Even though Win­dows Fire­wall can pre­vent many types of network-based attacks, it can’t pro­tect you against that most basic of secu­rity prob­lems, the human being sit­ting in front of the PC.”

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