To thwart computer hacking is a firewall, anti-virus program and a locked wireless network sufficient?

Question

To thwart computer hacking is a firewall, anti-virus program and a locked wireless network sufficient?

Answer 1

there are more steps such as making sure all your windows accounts have good passwords and the guest account is disabled, plus make sure you have the latest windows updates -

Answer 2

Nothing is bullet proof, but that's pretty much a good idea. What are you hiding from? If you were desperate, you could learn hacking to stop it...but that's extreme.

Good job, just keep it up to date!

Answer 3

It's all relative. I would say that that is overkill because with NAT on your router and the windows firewall, having another firewall is just redundant and the popups from it annoying. You should be pretty good. Assuming you're at home in a residential neighborhood with single family homes, that will be fine as for someone to hack into your network they would probably be close enough that you'd notice a stranger in your yard or a car parked in front of your house.



For the most part, I would say having an anti-virus, windows firewall enabled and using WPA2 encryption if possible is a good start. You should also turn off SSID broadcasting so people have to know your network name to connect to it, change the router's password from the default, and if possible the name of the router administrator account. Finally, you should turn on MAC address filtering and only allow computers you know to connect by listing their MAC addresses.



Most importantly, always make sure Windows Updates are installed. The big Conficker virus scare happened because when Microsoft releases security patches, hackers learn how to attack the hole that was just patched, and then they attack all the computers that haven't been patched yet.



In reality, the best protection exists between the keyboard and the chair. That's why I say a lot of this is overkill. People don't attack consumers' pcs using emailed viruses or war driving. People attack people by using them through phishing, or visiting questionable websites. You are more likely to lose your data from going to a site that has a virus embedded in it than from someone hacking into your wireless network. I just use common sense as best I can, keep ccleaner (http://www.ccleaner.com) and malwarebytes (http://www.malwarebytes.org) around for the times where I slip up and go somewhere evil, and keep my important data backed up to an external drive so when I do screw up, I can reinstall Windows without losing anything more than my settings. Which is also why I don't use firefox. I don't like the idea of installing plugins and customizations so that when my computer crashes I have to customize all over. I pretty much keep the stock browser, media player, etc as stock to avoid wasting time setting it up after a crash, which is usually my fault.

Answer 4

that should be enough its a damn good start



more steps such as making sure all your windows accounts have good passwords and the guest account is disabled, plus make sure you have the latest windows updates -

Answer 5

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmpCm8qSk3g

Answer 6

most computer hackings are of two varieties......



1: they guess your password, on your email or one of your site's like myspace and mess with you, like what happened with Sarah Palin.



2: they trick you into downloading malicious software, spyware, or fake antispyware programs then try to steal your identity from the inside out.



the best firewall and antivirus software on earth cannot prevent you from downloading something you shouldn't, what it comes down too the best computer security one can have is an informed user, knowing what to watch out for and how to avoid them.



a good antivirus like avira will help a lot, as well as a good HIPS program like comodo's defense plus or even threat fire, they will prevent malware from installing before it does, good luck.

Answer 7

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/firewall



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/antivirus_software

http://www.microsoft.com/networking/netwimprovements.mspx

http://www.viruslist.com/en/hackers/infro?chapter=153349899

Answer 8

Its OK but there lots of other things to be kept in mind. You can create a limited user account to access internet.

Answer 9

Wow.Now THATS good!

Answer 10

1. The ONLY protection home routers have is encryption, which is easily cracked in almost all cases through a variety of means. The upside is that you have to be in range of the wireless in order to crack it. For most people this means within 200 feet of the router. All other suggestions; MAC filtering, SSID broadcasts, etc. do not provide any protection from a malicious intruder, only hassles for legitimate users. Unless of course you want to go through the hassle of setting up a RADIUS server. AP isolation is good as well, but only really useful if you have wired machines on the network and do not need them to share anything.



2. Antiviruses do not provide security. They clean up after a breach. This is useful, but I prefer to simply not have the breach.



3. Firewalls are of limited usefulness as well. I have personally used vulnerabilities in firewalls many times to penetrate machines. Rather than installing something to block access to services, turn the services off, or block them within the TCP/IP configuration.





A few suggestions:

1. Delete/disable all administrative shares.

2. Passwords on Windows should either contain unicode characters 179-200 and/or be over 14 characters. This invalidates the LM hashes preventing easy cryptanalytic attacks when authenticating over the network, or if somebody anaged to actually get on your machine. The older hashes are compatability throwbacks and not necessary for local authentication.

3. Run IE as a separate user and deny execute permission on the local settings folders and all sensitive areas for that user. IE is now immune to malware. It can exploit all day and nothing will be able to run. Do the same for Flash and other "add ons."

4. Use limited accounts for everything.

5. Test out suspicious downloads in a sandbox or virtual machine before running.

6. Use a GOOD antivirus occasionally. Avast and Avira are good free antiviruses, but nothing on the market can even come close to Nod32 in terms of heuristic capabilities, low resource usage, and program compatability.

7. Audit everything. Audit logs are your best source of information as to what is happenening in your computer. Setting CAF (Crash on Audit Failure) is a good thing to set as well. This will immediately kill the computer the moment something interferes with the logging process, preserving the integrity and accuracy of the logs.

Answer 11

Yes thats a minimal requirement nowadays. You should take into account that hackers are most effective when they have physical access to your computer rather than via the internet. Make sure that you lock your computer whenever you dont use it or you're heading off for a break. Set a password for your admin account.



Another note concerns your ability to use your firewall properly. Firewall would block incoming and outcoming connections but in the end it requires your decision input for it to be effective. Learn what is unknown and risky to you, otherwise a firewall is no more than just a program.

Answer 12

ZeroBank.com encrypts your outbound transmissions and shields your ip address the free service is through the Tor system and is slow and only shields the ip address the subscription service encrypts data and shields your ip address then is routed through their high speed servers they also make the Xmachine a totaly encrypted computer/encrypted modems and routers...another good security program is Sandboxie.com you will surf in a virual box even if you get hit by a attacker it will not enter your system you will still need a antivirus/antispyware for when you download and save it to your machine

Answer 13

yea i guess it would be enough. Make sure that you dont share passwords with anyone and make sure you dont make them easily guessable. Dont go onto websites that ask for really specific information or seem to be suspicious.

Answer 14

That's a darn good start.