Computers::How Firewalls Work And Much More

Viruses - Probably the most well-known threat is computer viruses. A virus is a small program that can copy itself to other computers. This way it can spread quickly from one system to the next. Viruses range from harmless messages to erasing all of your data.

Spam - Typically harmless but always annoying, spam is the electronic equivalent of junk mail. Spam can be dangerous though. Quite often it contains links to Web sites. Be careful of clicking on these because you may accidentally accept a cookie that provides a backdoor to your computer.

computer.howstuffworks.com What It Protects You From Remote login Application backdoors SMTP session hijacking Operating system bugs Denial of service E-mail bombs Macros Viruses Spam Redirect bombs Source routing Some of the items in the list above are hard, if not impossible, to filter using a firewall. While some firewalls offer virus protection, it is worth the investment to install anti-virus software on each computer For most of us, it is probably better to work with the defaults provided by the firewall developer unless there is a specific reason to change it. One of the best things about a firewall from a security standpoint is that it stops anyone on the outside from logging onto a computer in your private network. While this is a big deal for businesses, most home networks will probably not be threatened in this manner. Still, putting a firewall in place provides some peace of mind. See all Security article