Home Security and Internet

Some people live with the illusion that they have protected their home networks from internet attacks by purchasing a firewall.  Manufacturers even promote this by identifying their products as firewalls. Sadly, most users are not protected by a firewall, but by the simple router.  

What’s the difference between a router and a firewall?  Without complicating it too much, a router acts as a junction point between the computer (or computers) in your home and the internet.  It has the ability to route your computers requests to the internet and route the responses back to your computer.  A firewall has this ability as well, but also offers another level of security by actually inspecting all the information and making some decisions about if it should allow it or not.    Since most routers are relatively simple devices, they act as a firewall because they are not capable of complex tasks, like routing internet requests back to your computer without some assistance. 

A very common attack on the internet is called a DOS (Denial of service) attack.  A hacker floods a website with requests for information that don’t exist and the website becomes overrun with requests, and service degrades.  Hackers have been known to exploit this attack to gain access to a site. How is it done? Usually a hacker will gain control of unsuspecting computers around the world, and use them to launch these attacks.  Your home computer could be infected and used as a pawn.  A router would simply pass your computer’s requests on but a sophisticated firewall could identify the traffic as suspicious and notify you.

So, how concerned should you be? It really comes down to your personal comfort level.  A basic router provides adequate protection.  Make sure if you have wireless access on your router, that you encrypt this as well.  Keep your computer’s antivirus updated and run a regular scan.  When you do have problems, deal with it promptly. The old saying “locked doors keep honest people out” is pretty a good analogy.  You leave in the morning and lock your front door, as you head to work.  If someone wants access to your house, it’s fairly easy for a professional to gain access.  The same is true with the internet, if someone wants access, they will get it.  With millions of computers on the internet, and thousands of unprotected machines available, your chances of attracting attention are pretty slim.

Source: Northern Computer