I am very particular about what goes on within my home network.  It is sacred territory.  Even my 6 year old son knows what hacking is.  Therefore, I take measures to protect my home network.  Why?  Well, I don’t just assume that no one cares about what goes on in my home network.  I may not be a big corporate entity, but I do have assets on my network that I want protected from prying eyes and possible intruders.

A lot of people do not understand the need for firewall appliances or even applications on a home network.  They think that because they are not a bank or major enterprise that people are not concerned with them.  I disagree.  Not only are there people in the wilds of the Internet that scour the Net for potential victims; there are “bots” which continuously pound at cable networks and dsl networks.  Bots are compromised machines that are controlled in mass numbers by “herders”.  These “herders” use IRC (Internet Relay Chat) software and protocol to control these victimized machines and to cause them to deny service to networks, machines, and websites.  They also use these bots to further infect the Internet and grow their population.

Every person with an Internet connection needs some type of firewall.  Whether it be an appliance or software product, people need protection from the Internet. Not only do you need protection from the Internet, we the Internet users, need protection from unknowledgeable users getting infected because they have not been educated on how to safely use the Internet.  ISPs need to do a better job of educating their subscribers about the dangers of the Internet and how each user’s lack of concern can cause problems for every other subscriber.  ISPs need to suggest that their users get firewalls and know how to use them.

I use and recommend IPCop.  It is a Linux distribution that you can load on an old pc (unless you just have a high class machine you want to under-utilize) that provides a firewall with a web gui for administration.  It is easily customized to provide more features, but out of the box (so to say), it supports firewalling, vpn, port forwarding, dmz, etc.  Please take a minute or two to research this product.

IPCop

You might find these useful as well:

Smoothwall

Zonealarm

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Filed under: Interesting Links, Internet, Security by Philip Williams