Re: Personal Firewalls

[Gary Dobbins <dobbins () ND EDU>]

We currently advise enabling the built-in XP firewall as a baseline.
Given that it does nothing for limiting unwanted outbound activity, it
nonetheless seems to hit the 80/20 benefit/'cost' ratio.  As
low-hanging fruit, we're hoping that its widespread use prevents the
majority of the easily-avoidable infections.

Of course, as the bulk of defensive need shifts from barring
NetBIOS-borne stuff like Sasser, and onto webpage-delivered malware,
we're going to need more finesse than the blunt instrument XP's
firewall provides.  But for now, I'd be overjoyed to simply invert the
ratio of enabled .vs. disabled XP-walls.


Sadler, Connie wrote:

> Does anyone recommend a personal firewall on campus? If not, are you
> considering doing so? If you do make a recommendation, did you do an
> eval? We're considering an evaluation of personal firewalls, for remote
> users as well as users on campus, and know that it presents risks and
> challenges. I'm interested in what others may have learned about this.
>
> Connie J. Sadler, CM, CISSP, CISM
> Director, IT Security, Brown University
> Box 1885, Providence, RI 02912
> Connie_Sadler () Brown edu
> Office: 401-863-7266
> PGP Key: http://pgp.mit.edu:11371/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0x91E38EFB
> PGP Fingerprint: DA5F ED84 06D7 1635 4BC7  560D 9A07 80BA 91E3 8EFB
>
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--

  ------------------------------------------------------------
  Gary Dobbins, CISSP -- Director, Information Security
  University of Notre Dame, Office of Information Technologies

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