How good is your firewall?

pchelpman · 29 March 2006 at 11:57AM

A simple and easy way to test the effectiveness of your firewall is to do a port scan on it. That's what attackers would do on your system to see if there is a way in. A great (and free) online tool to do this is called “Shields Up!” and is available at the Gibbon Research Corporation's website here ... https://www.grc.com.

Click "ShieldsUp!!". The Shields Up option is about halfway down that page. Give your firewall a scan and make sure you are as secure as you think you are.

wolfman · 29 March 2006 at 12:09PM

I'll need to find a leaktest tool too. Quite common for people to block inbound attacks, but not take any precautions regarding anything going outbound from their machine.

pchelpman · 29 March 2006 at 12:47PM

This do? (from the same company plus other freeware stuff)

http://www.grc.com/freepopular.htm

tigermatt · 29 March 2006 at 4:33PM

I've got a pretty good firewall in the router so most of the ports are stealth. The only problem I have is because my network server needs to accept SMTP communications HTTP and HTTPS connections, I have to have these ports open unfortunately.

iwanttosave_2 · 29 March 2006 at 4:37PM

I am operating in stelth mode :cool:

madnlooney · 29 March 2006 at 8:13PM

i use sygate as my firewall and have done there test. mine are eather blocked or stealthed

GaryS · 29 March 2006 at 8:28PM

Your system has achieved a perfect "TruStealth" rating. . Very nice.

Your Internet port 139 does not appear to exist!
YOUR computer has DELIBERATELY CHOSEN NOT TO RESPOND (that's very cool!) .
Unable to connect with NetBIOS to your computer.
All attempts to get any information from your computer have FAILED.
This computer appears to be VERY SECURE since it is NOT exposing ANY of its internal NetBIOS networking protocol over the Internet.

My system seems to be ok.

slowen · 29 March 2006 at 10:00PM

Got a perfect pass rate

"Your system has achieved a perfect "TruStealth" rating. Not a single packet — solicited or otherwise — was received from your system as a result of our security probing tests. Your system ignored and refused to reply to repeated Pings (ICMP Echo Requests). From the standpoint of the passing probes of any hacker, this machine does not exist on the Internet. Some questionable personal security systems expose their users by attempting to "counter-probe the prober", thus revealing themselves. But your system wisely remained silent in every way. Very nice."

wolfman · 29 March 2006 at 11:05PM

Here's a leaktest they do.
http://grc.com/lt/leaktest.htm

Stopping outgoing attempts can be just as important as blocking incoming attacks.

paulb369uk · 30 March 2006 at 12:20AM

I have tried the above and seemed to fail badly. I have the following:-

Windows firewall
Ad-Aware SE
Prevx
Spyware Blaster
Ewido

I am on MAAF and have a BT voyager 210 router which I dont think has a built in firewall. Is there any other free software I could use to protect myself more than what I am currently doing.

Many thanks

wolfman · 30 March 2006 at 12:35AM

Try a different firewall. Sunbelt Personal Firewall (formerly Kerio Personal Firewall) is very good (and free). The inbuilt Windows one isn't the best in my opinion.

How good is your firewall?

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