How It Works: Personal Firewalls

Insurance for Your Home PC

If you work at a large corporation, odds are good that a firewall sits between you and the outside world. But the increased availability of cable and DSL service means you could spend more time connected to the Internet from home--and more time as a potential target for hackers. You're somewhat vulnerable even on short dial-up connections. Unfortunately, most people become aware of the danger only after they become victims. With cyberattacks increasing, Chris Christiansen, an analyst with market research firm IDC, predicts that firewalls will be ubiquitous in five or six years.

But you don't have to buy an expensive, hard-to-maintain security system for your PC. Personal firewalls, usually based on the application gateway model, can keep you safe. These products don't require you to program complex restrictions. They'll guide you through a setup that asks you what you want to allow or block. They can also help you monitor intrusion attempts and protect you from most Trojan horse or spyware programs that let a hacker control your computer over the Internet. They can hide your identity while you surf, too.

Personal firewalls are available either as part of an integrated security suite or as stand-alone software. Symantec's $60 Norton Internet Security 2000 package, for example, bundles a personal firewall for Windows 95 and 98 with software for Web ad and cookie blocking, parental Web control, personal security, and virus scanning. If you don't want a whole kit, you can get firewall software such as Network Ice's BlackIce Defender, McAfee's Cisco or Zone Labs' free ZoneAlarm.

Companies including Check Point and Gibson Research's Internet Connection Security for Windows Users make high-end firewalls, such as the ones used by corporate IS departments. These firewalls often come as part of a dedicated server and are usually incorporated into a company's overall security strategy, which may also include avirtual private network. Because of their complexity and cost, such firewalls aren't a good option for small business or home users.

Firewalls Move Into the Mainstream

While most personal firewalls are available now as software that you install on your PC, IDC analyst Christiansen predicts that firewalls will be integrated into hardware in the next few years. That means the next DSL or cable modem you buy or lease may have a firewall already installed.

To make maintaining a firewall easy, Christiansen says, companies will offer subscription services. You'll pay $50 a month and the company will make sure your firewall is up-to-date. That maintenance is key to keeping your data safe: As soon as hackers hear about a weakness in a firewall, they hunt for people who haven't upgraded to the latest version and break in.

As our dependence on the Internet and computers grows, so will the personal consequences of a security breach. Whether to protect your personal information from theft or to keep your PC from being hijacked by a hacker, installing a personal firewall makes sense.

Additional Resources

• National Institute of Science and Technology's Introduction to Internet Firewalls
  
  
• National Institute of Science and Technology's Introduction to Internet Firewalls