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Adam Kalsey

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Security & Privacy

Personal firewall advantages

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This blog post is over 20 years old. It's possible that the information you read below isn't current and the links no longer work.

9 Oct 2003

Another thing a software firewall can do that a NAT router cannot is protect computers on your network from the other computers on your network.

If one of your computers gets compromised or infected, or if a user on your network decides to be malicious, a NAT router won’t help you one bit. Traffic between computers on your network doesn’t pass through NAT, so a worm on one computer can infect all the other computers. A hacker who gains access to you network can then attack any machine on your network. If you have a wireless access point on your network, anyone connecting to it is immediately behind your NAT router and can connect to your other computers.

A software firewall like ZoneAlarm, Outpost, or Norton Personal Firewall can prevent such intrusions from your own network.

Comments

Marta
January 30, 2006 12:54 PM

Hello! My name is Marta and I am student of Business Comunications and I have to do a report of some terms of references such as Firewalls. I have been looking at your web site but I didn't find some information. I wonder if you could help me about some ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF FIREWALLS and also WHO NEED FIREWALLS. I will be greatfull if you help me with these two questions. Thanks. Marta

This discussion has been closed.

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