Education is your only defense. You are head and shoulders ahead of 99% of would-be
network admins out there, just by paying attention to this list.
You can reduce your risk when connecting to the internet by 99% by installing a
simple, and in many cases FREE (linux) Firewall. All you need to buy is a dedicated
box with one purpose FIREWALL it can be a lowly 486 with 16mb of ram and two network
cards, no mouse, crappy ega video card, etc etc..
You can run your firewall on your production server, however you're asking for
trouble, unless you're real saavy with linux/unix etc..(Novell has a good product
"BorderManager" but it's not free). The more you run on your firewall the more likely
you are to lose track of what you're letting in/out. And pretty soon it's doing you no
good at all.
Granted this is a very basic firewall configuration, but for the SOHO office it's
usually enough to thwart the recreational hacker, AND if you do get compromised, you
can at least say "Well, I tried, see...heres my firewall" instead of "duh...gee I
don't know what you're talking about" which seems to be the standard response.
good luck..
Marc..
>>> rj <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 11/17/99 03:19PM >>>
Greeting,
I've been lurking on this list because the subject is of interest but
do not have alot of tech knowledge. The comment below about SOHO being
esp. vulnerable is of special interest. What can be done, or where
can I go to find out about what to do, to help reduce the vulnerability
of a dial-up connection. I'm running NT4.0 SP3 and just got a new box
with W98?
Thanks!
On Wed, 17 Nov 1999, Marc Renner wrote:
> It doesn't matter which type of connectivity solution you choose. xDSL, Frame Relay,
>X.25, FDDI, Microwave etc.. ANY connection to the internet is in-effect, rolling out
>the red carpet for groups or individuals who wish to abuse the system. SOHO (Small
>Office/Home Office) are particularly vulnerable, as these systems tend to have little
>or no technical and/or financial support available to configure their systems
>securely. Although these organization typically have little or no valuable data to be
>stolen, they are often used as "hops" or stepping stones. Once these small innocuous
>systems have been compromised they are then easily used to launch attacks on systems
>which contain more valuable data and/or resources, making it look like the attack
>originated from the SOHO site.
>
> Good luck Lisa,
>
>
> +++++++++++++++++++++++++++
> Marc Renner - Director
> Nework Operations Dept.
> City of Marysville, WA
>
> ++Don't Get Mad....Get NDS!++
> +++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> >>> "Lisa Cabon" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 11/17/99 09:08AM >>>
> Hi,
>
> I'm doing a paper on possible reasons why one would want to use a personal
> firewall or some such behind a DSL router in a small business or home
> office. I'm doing a lot of research on the Net and other fora also, but I
> thought I'd ask what people's opinions are of using DSL *without* a
> firewall. What are some of the risks? And what types of firewalls might be
> the best bet for this situation, if one is needed?
>
> Thanks,
> Lisa
>
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