Re: Reactive Firewalls

[Darren Reed <darrenr () cyber com au>]

In some mail I received from Stout, William, sie wrote
> I agree to the extent that I seriously question firewalls that shutdown
> during a perceived attack.  I agree that reactive firewalls can be
> dangerous, a hacker/cracker finds out what a target responds to, then
> manipulates the target by its' reactions.  A reactive firewall makes a
> great D.O.S. target.

Whilst feedback may help the hacker, if it shuts down and needs to be
manually rebooted, it also slows down the attack considerably.  There's
also a good chance it will discourage those who are 'trolling' for
insecure sites/firewalls from making a serious attempt to penetrate
your firewall.

Personally, I'd prefer a service that fell victim to D.O.S attacks than
one which could be compromised.

Darren