[Nottingham] Setting up a router at uni (Danny King)

[Jim Moore]

Danny King wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I'm going to be a Fresher at Durham Uni pretty soon and I'll be taking
> a desktop, laptop and a server. Do you guys think it'd be worth
> getting a router/firewall box for security? I use one here but it's my
> dads!
>
> Thanks
>
>   
<plug/shill>

Absolutely, it's the first and only line of defence against incoming 
traffic ("softwalls", software firewalls ie ZoneAlarm, only stop 
outgoing traffic - think about it a minute, by the time any 
AV/AS/firewall software gets to deal with malware it's already on your 
system! Hardwalls ie NAT/firewalls stop incoming traffic but /not/ 
outgoing, so used with decent (read: NOT Symantec or McAffee) AV/AS 
software you have two-way protection. Another method of protection is to 
combine the two, using say Busybox and AVG for Linux on a cheap box 
(here's where those Pentiums come in handy!) and build your own custom 
router). I highly recommend a Busybox NAT/firewall; I have one of these 
myself, it's never, ever put a foot wrong and it gets reset probably 
once every three months. The CNet ones are OK but I did occasionally hit 
a bad unit when I was installing these, so if you do go that route a 
spare would be very handy. Stay away from the Sitecom ones.

</plug/shill>


TLP