High-Speed Firewalls

Did you know that if you have a high-speed connection, (i.e.: cable or DSL) your computer is continually attacked by people trying to break in?

That rather sensationalistic line may seem inflammatory but it is accurate.

There are people out on the Internet who do the computer equivalent of trying the knob on the front door of your house to see if it's open. Every computer that's connected to the Internet is given an address. This group of so-called "hackers" runs through those addresses looking for holes they might be able to use to gain access to some of your data, steal passwords, or even shut down your system. To stop these attacks you need to erect a barrier to stop them. This barrier is called a Firewall.

A firewall was originally a barrier that was put into single engine planes in World War I to protect the pilot from the dangerously hot engine. Firewalls for a computer do pretty much the same thing, but prevent hackers, rather than heat from doing damage.

Firewalls come in two flavors: hardware or software. Most common with home computer users are the software ones, ZoneAlarm, BlackIce and a few others. They do a pretty good job of stopping attacks on your system. If you are very security conscious you may want to consider getting a hardware firewall. These physical firewalls go by many different names: "Web Safe Router", "Gateway Router", "Internet Gateway" and others. The concept behind these is fairly simple: get in the way between the Internet and the computer and filter attacks out. The firewall will prevent the attack from even getting near the computer. Hardware firewalls tend to be more expensive than software ones but the added security is generally more than worth the extra cost.

If you are concerned about the safety of the data on your system, you cannot afford to be without some kind of firewall. If you need help setting up a software or hardware firewall, give us a call, we'd be happy to help.