Firewall Wizards mailing list archives
Re: firewalls and the incoming traffic problem
From: Aleph One <aleph1 () dfw net>
Date: Sun, 28 Sep 1997 15:44:43 -0500 (CDT)
On Sun, 28 Sep 1997, Marcus J. Ranum wrote:
- Firewalls are good at providing access control on return traffic that is in response to a request that originated behind the firewall
I am not sure you can make this claim. The fact is that a firewall will never be able to protect you from implementation errors. It does not matter if the implementation is a client or server. Take for example web browsers. The firewall may be configure to filter Java and Javascript from incomming HTML, but what about that little known feature of Embedded Browser 3.4 that came with your free copy of LameSuite 3.2 that lets anyone do <MYOWNLAMESCRIPTINGLANGUAGE EXEC="c:\windows\format">? Or what about users of the some scriptable IRC client with the latest scripts with backdoors? So yes you are correct that firewalls force you to split your security between the firewalls and host security on all systems. But it is naive to think it hasnt always been this way. Until someone starts to develop a firewall based on some AI techniques they are no more than a static filter for a dynamicly changing enviroment.
mjr. ----- Marcus J. Ranum, CEO, Network Flight Recorder, Inc. <A HREF=http://www.clark.net/pub/mjr>Personal</A> <A HREF=http://www.nfr.net>Work</A> <A HREF=http://www.clark.net/pub/mjr/websec>New Book!!</A>
Aleph One / aleph1 () dfw net http://underground.org/ KeyID 1024/948FD6B5 Fingerprint EE C9 E8 AA CB AF 09 61 8C 39 EA 47 A8 6A B8 01
Current thread:
- firewalls and the incoming traffic problem Marcus J. Ranum (Sep 28)
- Re: firewalls and the incoming traffic problem Paul D. Robertson (Sep 28)
- Re: firewalls and the incoming traffic problem Jyri Kaljundi (Sep 29)
- Re: firewalls and the incoming traffic problem Aleph One (Sep 28)
- Re: firewalls and the incoming traffic problem neil d. quiogue (Sep 29)
- Re: firewalls and the incoming traffic problem Aleph One (Sep 30)
- Re: firewalls and the incoming traffic problem neil d. quiogue (Sep 29)
- Re: firewalls and the incoming traffic problem Darren Reed (Sep 28)
- Re: firewalls and the incoming traffic problem Bennett Todd (Sep 29)
- Re: firewalls and the incoming traffic problem Leonard Miyata (Sep 30)
- <Possible follow-ups>
- Re: firewalls and the incoming traffic problem Anton J Aylward (Sep 28)
- Firewall administration. Darren Reed (Sep 29)
- Re: Firewall administration. Bennett Todd (Sep 30)
- Firewall administration. Darren Reed (Sep 29)
- RE: firewalls and the incoming traffic problem Itai Dor-on (Sep 28)
- Re: firewalls and the incoming traffic problem Bennett Todd (Sep 29)
(Thread continues...)
- Re: firewalls and the incoming traffic problem Paul D. Robertson (Sep 28)