[Wylug-help] Firewall advice needed

[James Holden]

Anne Wilson wrote:
| On Thursday 18 March 2004 15:09, you wrote:
|
|>>Anne,
|>>
|>>Isn't it just a question of looking up what ports to open up?
|>>
|>>I seem to remember seeing a web site somewhere which gave firewall
|>>configs for most common apps, including the dreaded MSN Messenger
|>>
|
| That I can do, Any, no problem.  What I was really looking for was
| anyone's experience and comments about security issues.
|
| Anne

It all falls on the application really. There's nothing wrong as such
with opening ports on your firewall, but what the machine on the inside
does with the data is another issue.

For instance, if you're running a peer to peer application, you have
toplace some trust in it that it's not going to give the entire contents
of your hard disk to the entire world.

Opening ports on your firewall to allow traffic to Windows machines
could compromise your protection from spyware doing nasty stuff, or
allow backdoors or trojans to function.

As for the software in question, I'd just skim sites like the one you
mentioned to see what the ill-effects may be.

James