boring computer security and paranoia thread

[oskar]

I just ended a session early to find some solution to this because keep getting more and more attacks every day. And it's not the same buffer overflow exploit over and over again like it used to be, it's getting diversified. I'm not incredibly worried about my money directly because I guess it's hard to get around rsa security but I still feel I need to do something about it. I don't think it's unreasonable to suspect that people would fetch ip's from irc and then try their luck.
I have Kaspersky installed, but I guess a router or even a dedicated firewall would be good.
problem is the firewall in the up to $200 range cap out at 24mbit and I plan on upgrading to 30 soon. My isp offers up to 100 for a reasonable price, so I would very much like my router /firewall to be able to handle that.

Does anyone here even use a dedicated firewall... gawd as I just got about 30 individual attacks while writing this. Imma shut down now and read a book because this is getting irritating.

[Warpe]

Use this software firewall: Firewall Antivirus Software Free Download from Comodo

and, yeah, get a router (physical firewall).

[CoccoBill]

Welcome to the internet, if you have a public ip it will be scanned/sweeped at least once an hour. This don't mean they are targeted attakcs against you, and it definitely doen't mean they are successful. How would the situation change with a firewall appliance?

If you make sure you always have the latest updates installed, run an antivirus, turn on the windows firewall and refrain from installing shady stuff and clicking on every exciting link on the interwebs, there's no need for any additional software nor hardware.

[bigred]

I'm pretty sure the government is after you and you need to enlist Will Smith's help to survive...

[Hawk]

Coccobill is right, but I would still suggest a basic home router. It'll work out of the box, but you'll want to set it up, change admin password, etc.

Nothing will make you absolutely untouchable, but a router provides another layer that potential attackers would have to get through, and any unknown holes in your system won't be directly accessible from the outside.

None of this does any good though if you visit the wrong website (No Script for firefox is awesome, but like most security type stuff can be annoying) or run the wrong program, or do something even dumber like give out a password.

[oskar]

I'm pretty sure the government is after you and you need to enlist Will Smith's help to survive...

Ino rite!


A friend gave me an old router a couple of days ago, but for some reason I couldn't get the dhcp to assign an IP to my PC's NIC so I tried to set a static IP from my laptop, but that didn't work either. Turns out it was probably just a typo in the mac address and now it's on. So far it looks like it did the trick. I'll know for sure after I forward voip and torrent ports.
Password is set, dhcp is disabled now and NAT is set to german housewife mode.

The comodo firewall apparently gets better ratings than the kaspersky one I have installed, but people are complaining about compatibility issues between kaspersky internet security and comodo, so I'll stick with kaspersky for now.