Firewalls

[Rhisiart]

Just how effective is Mac OS X built in Firewall (say versions 10.3.9 upwards)?

I am not on a network. I have a Netgear router, but I don't think it has a NAT firewall built in.

I currently run Intego's NetBarrier. I wonder whether this additional software (which is not cheap) is really necessary.

I also hear that setting a firewwall to stealth mode is a complete waste of time.

Does anyone have any thoughts on the above?

 

[symphonix]

I currently run Intego's NetBarrier. I wonder whether this additional software (which is not cheap) is really necessary.

I consider it a waste of money and effort to run an additional firewall, especially if you only have one computer. Face it, the built in firewall blocks traffic on unwanted ports. A more expensive one is not going to do it any differently, it only really adds more logging and reporting.

I also hear that setting a firewwall to stealth mode is a complete waste of time.

All stealth mode does is ensure that if a computer out there tries to connect to your Mac on a port that is blocked, it wont even get a response at all. So instead of the hacker/virus/whatever checking for a vulnerable port and getting a "no go" reply, it gets no reply at all, and assumes the address is completely dead. Its not a waste of time to turn this on as it costs nothing in terms of processing, and it will stop many viruses or toolkits from trying to port scan your Mac to see what ports are open, as the scanner will just assume the address is dead and move onto the next victim.

 

[eric2006]

If you really want to improve security, check out this:

http://www.yale.edu/its/security/securing/OSX_sec.htm

You should be fine for security anyways, OS X is famous for it's built-in security, unless you changed some important settings

 

[Rhisiart]

I consider it a waste of money and effort to run an additional firewall, especially if you only have one computer. Face it, the built in firewall blocks traffic on unwanted ports. A more expensive one is not going to do it any differently, it only really adds more logging and reporting.

I suspected this. I have three Intego products; NetBarrier, VirusBarrier and ContentBarrier. The first two are probably just taking up disc space (i.e. completely unecessary). The third is useful as I don't have Tiger which has the inbuilt parental control.

These products aren't cheap!

ERIC2006
Thanks for the link.

 

[ex2bot]

Your router IS a firewall. All routers, AFAIK, are firewalls. After all, what does a router do? It routs incommng tcp packets to the requesting computer. Any communication in that is not requested--is stopped. Firewalled.

At this point, I think a hardware firewall would be more than sufficient. We have 0 exploits at this point on OS X. Of course Oompa exploits people's curiosity. So, call it what you will.

Doug
I used to have a dog named Oompa. Hmmm . . .

 

[Rhisiart]

Your router IS a firewall. All routers, AFAIK, are firewalls. After all, what does a router do? It routs incommng tcp packets to the requesting computer. Any communication in that is not requested--is stopped. Firewalled. At this point, I think a hardware firewall would be more than sufficient. We have 0 exploits at this point on OS X. Of course Oompa exploits people's curiosity. So, call it what you will.

Many thanks for this. Seems like I have over cooked the eggs.

 

[bobw]

Yep, the Netgear is a Firewall, no need for any third party software.