Generally speaking, few people on the Internet are out to get you specifically. In truth, they’re out to get anyone whose systems they can possibly gain access to. Obviously the Internet is a huge, immense place, so how do they find people? Well, the most basic tool employed by automated bots and those out to […]

Earlier in this article we mentioned that a firewall could also be used to control the services that internal hosts can access on the Internet. While most hardware routers are initially configured to allow all hosts access to any Internet services by default, you can also control who can access the Internet, or certain services, […]

Certainly you don’t need to know anything about port numbers if you never plan to allow external users to access your network, or if you don’t plan to control the types of Internet services that your internal users can use. However, if you do plan to make use of either feature, you’ll need to know […]

Although a firewall will block all requests from the outside world by default, there may be times when you actually want to allow external users into your network. For example, maybe you’re running an FTP server internally that you want to gain access to while on the road, or maybe you have a Web server […]

If you’re planning to connect your network to the Internet, chances are good that your ISP will provide you with only a single “real” IP address. The good news is that’s all you’ll need for multiple internal PCs to connect to the Internet. Network Address Translation (NAT) is a feature that allows systems on an […]

While once strictly the domain of UNIX geeks and enterprise network administrators, almost all PC users today have at least heard of a firewall. At the most basic level, a firewall is a hardware device or software application that allows you to control the types of network traffic that travel into and out of a […]

Forensics is becoming a popular following, thanks to the multitude of TV shows that show crime scene technicians collecting evidence, spending a few minutes in the lab determining the guilt of the culprit, and wrapping up the case at the end of the show. But in real life, forensics, like other complex issues distilled on […]

In this tutorial you’ll learn more about how easy it is to test your firewall’s incoming security preparedness, and what port scan results are actually telling you.
Installing personal firewall software like ZoneAlarm or Norton Personal Firewall is a great start towards protecting your PC from online dangers, but you should still test its inbound security […]

Call them what you will, but one thing is for certain: spyware, malware, and adware have become the bane of many a PC user’s experience. While IT departments in larger organizations have done a good job of cleaning up systems and locking them down to prevent future infections, the average home user’s PC continues to […]

Keeping Windows XP updated with the latest critical security patches released by Microsoft is one of the most effective ways to protect your PC against exploits designed to take advantage of known flaws. This article explains how you can ensure that XP is configured to download and install the necessary updates automatically.
In much the same […]