Advice on internet security

[brida]

We are having broadband installed soon and we are concerned about firewalls, etc. Has anyone any good/bad experiences with the products on the market?

[j2buttonsw]

I used to run Microsoft Proxyserver, Blackice Defender and Norton Anti-virus which was OK but PS and BID were not very configurable. I now run Microsoft ISA server and NAV which is an industry standard software firewall/anti-virus solution. Many people recommend ZoneAlarm as a software firewall it is free but others are convinced that you are not safe unless you invest in a hardware firewall. I would go for ZoneAlarm and NAV. IMO, the most important bits are the configuration of the firewall and the maintenance of current virus definition files.

[lisaj]

ZoneAlarm is not great as a firewall for attacks from the outside. What is does help with is alerting you to network activity originating from within (ie. a virus). The simplest way to remain secure on broadband as a consumer if you're not behind hardware protection is to keep up to date with security patches (make it a weekly activity to use the Windows Update site), be careful about downloading and running applications (since it's far easier for someone to trick you into compromising you system than to attack it from outside), and to use a virus scanner. Kazaa is rife with viruses and I find roughly 2 in 3 programs downloaded with it is infected, so... Don't use P2P without anti-virus software