Re: A good firewall working fine in default?

Volker Birk wrote:

> NAT is not a security feature. Better turn on filtering on your router,
> too.

  I don't see that option on this one. I'll activate zonealarm again in
the meantime.

>>I went to grc.com and their tests say all ports are secure.
>
>
> http://grcsucks.com

Not with me. It saved me from a completely destroyed machine three
months ago. I dealt with one system that just upgraded to XP and the
firewall had not been activated. There was no AV program either because
it needed one for XP instead of ME. Three people had used it for 30
minutes that way trying to install a program and a wireless usb adapter.
In that time - 30 minutes - ten trojans had been installed (which I
found out later).

  I activated the firewall when I noticed it was off, then went to
GRC.com to test it. To my horror it read wide open on the first test,
file sharing, was able to connect to that system. That also explained
why I was getting all sorts of popups wanting to connect to places like
China and other places all over.

  Even though the XP firewall screen read "enabled", it had actually
been disabled by the trojans. GRC read the situation correctly.
  Spyboy Search&Destroy was the progream which alerted me to the
"Security Center" area in the registry and showed what the settings
should have been. When I tried to reset them correctly the first time,
it didn't work because the trojans still had control. After I got rid of
the trojans with NOD32 and Trojanhunter I could reset the registry
settings and they didn't change.

Once again I tried all the GRC tests and all the ports read secure.
No more popups either.
Received on Mon May 1 00:50:59 2006