Information Security Training

Best Practices with Firewalls (Courtesy of ISO, University of Tennessee) To watch the video, click on the icon below that matches your media player. If you don't have a player, go to our download page. If you need a video with text captions, please visit our text-captioned page.

Personal Firewalls Best Practices

A personal firewall is a software device that can monitor Internet traffic to and from your computer. It can provide information through detailed logs of attempts against your computer. It also can be configured to block traffic you don’t want to receive using policies. They greatly hinder a hacker attempts to gain entrance to your PC by denying access to information.

Most operating systems come today with a firewall already built-in. These include Windows XP service pack 2 with a limited integrated Windows Firewall, Linux with Netfilter, and Mac OS X. There are other third-party programs such as Black Ice and ZoneAlarm that provide firewalls. Some of these are even free to use.

So what can personal firewalls do? They can block ports that viruses, worms and Trojan horses use to control your PC. They prevent unauthorized computers from using your printers and network. Firewalls can prevent applications from accessing the Internet if they don’t need to. They also block illegitimate traffic going to and from your computer. Lastly, firewalls can dramatically increase the difficulty for a hacker to access or exploit your PC.

Did you know that data traffic to and from your computer travels in the clear? This means that hackers can intercept and read the content of your messages. Information that they are interested in include passwords, credit card numbers, and social security numbers. Using firewalls is not enough. However, using, Virtual Private Networks (VPN) provide a solution by encrypting the information leaving your computer or otherwise make the information unreadable to the hacker. Towson University utilizes VPN for securing communications to critical information sources or to protect personal information. To use VPN requires the installation of a VPN client on the PC. This is a free service at Towson University and downloadable off the Office of Technology Services web site. Once the VPN client software is installed and started, an encrypted channel can be opened between your computer and the VPN concentrator thus thwarting any attempts by people trying to intercept personal information.

What more?

• How Firewalls Work
• Firewall FAQs
• Personal Firewall Reviews
• Why Should You Use a Personal Firewall?
• How VPN Works
• Installing Towson VPN Client
• Installing Towson VPN Client for MAC

If you need further assistance, email infosec@towson.edu for help.
 

Information Security Office
Office of Technology Services
Cook Library, 4
Hours: Monday - Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.
E-mail: infosec@towson.edu