Re: Zone Alarm & Wireless Access Point Security

On Sat, 11 Feb 2006 09:29:05 -0800, Kerodo <loopback@localhost.com>
wrote:

>In article <sp3su1d5h5020lnkdt83mik2nsrlir4a2n@4ax.com>,
>nospam@nospam.com says...
>>
>> Most of this software is benign in nature, but it can take up
>> bandwidth. Some of it is spyware and a lot of that is included with
>> computer games.
>>
>> On my nephew's computer, his computer games were installing all sorts
>> of minor malware that was constantly trying to call home. Zone Alarm
>> not only blocked these programs but it also alerted me to the fact
>> that I needed to get them off the computer.
>>
>> But since some computer games will not install or run without
>> installing these programs, all I have to do with Zone Alarm is to
>> block the outgoing connections and the programs become harmless.
>>
>
>You're probably fighting a losing battle there. ZA will not render
>those programs harmless, in fact, quite the contrary. It will simply
>prevent some (not necessarily all) of them from connecting out, but they
>are still running and who knows what the heck else they are doing to
>your system. The outbound connection is only the tip of the iceberg.
>The only real solution is to prevent their install to begin with, but if
>this is not possible, then you might as well just let the machine froth
>at the mouth and be done with it. ZA is just adding more overhead to it
>without really helping much.

 These programs are a lot more destructive if they can call home. If
nothing else, Zone Alarm stops most of from spreading. To be honest, I
don't get much malware. My anti-virus, anti-spam, and anti-malware
software keep my system very clean.
 
 After I uninstalled both Bit Defender and Spy Sweeper, Zone Alarm
notified me that both were continuing to call home. Both were
communicating with their respective update servers as well as sending
system information to their vendors.

 I had the same problem with Norton products several years ago.
Despite being uninstalled using the Norton uninstall utility, these
programs continued to call home with great regularity.

 I was able to use Zone Alarm to locate the offending software and
remove it manually. Without Zone Alarm I would not have any idea what
they were up to.

 As I said before, the most problems that we discover are on my
Nephew's computer and his computer games appear to be the worst
offenders. I use Zone Alarm to isolate his computer from the rest of
the network. Zone Alarm also does a great job of keeping the spyware
that comes with these games from calling home.

 There are a lot of differing opinions regarding software firewalls.
It is evident that even the best hardware appliances can't keep out
all the threats. So I research the problem and do what I think is
best, to date I think that Zone Alarm is a better option that the XP
firewall.

 There are a lot of folks in the industry who agree and there are
those who don't.

 
Received on Mon May 1 00:50:12 2006