Antivirus and Hacker Protection Service
 

Hi All,

Some of you in the Central South TV area may have seen adverts for a new service from netQuest Solutions for Antivirus and Intrusion Protection from hackers.

netQuest is an associate company to the one I am a director of and I've just posted an advert in the Business Directory under IT and Web Solutions.

Given the amount of threats to both dialup and broadband DSC members as advised by the DSC Web Team and other DSC members, I thought this might be useful for those who are not fully protected or who would benefit from an automatic updating service rather than having to update themselves.

Let me know what you think.

Kind regards to all


John Colbourne

This attachment shows the number of intrusions I had overnight since 10pm.

That's unauthorised persons trying to hack into my machine whilst I'm connected ot the net. I'm not on broadband but a dial-up which cuts outs every 2 hours and reconnects.

Give you all some idea of how Firewall software works and how important it is even to non-business users.

Get some now is my advice........

Guido

(PS. No I'm not working for John!!)

Attack examples
 

Thanks Guido.

Attached is an example of the events list from BlackICE on my PC which also shows the attacks have been blocked (diagonal line through icon).

This is the protection and blocking you will get with the netQuest service plus Antivirus protection also.

Hope this helps.

Rgds

John C

Sorry all, DSC web site says image is too big. I'll figure something out and try and re-post

[Edited on 20-4-2004 by Johnnyceesred]

[Edited on 20-4-2004 by Johnnyceesred]

Try again with screen shot

That all looks very nice but for the internet idiots like me can you tell us in plain English what it actually means?

I've been on the net now for six years and only had virus software for the past six months. What change will i see by using this software?

Weeksy,
If the 'built in' firewall in XP is activated, is this enough protection for home users, or is it better to invest in a firewall package?

Cheers,
Matt

You don't need to invest in a third-party firewall - get the free ZoneAlarm package.

ZoneAlarm is more than just a firewall as it checks all incoming and outgoing traffic to ensure that your PC is only doing things that you want it to.

For example, a lot of software will "dial home" at some point to check for updates, but it may also record information about you or your PC without your knowledge.

ZoneAlarm stops this happening by asking you about each access request to the network (both internet and local networks) so you can check that programs work as you want.

It also makes sure that (possibly) malicious incoming traffic is also screened, giving the affect that your PC isn't actually there - like a "cloaking device" if you will!

It's not a big piece of software to download and generally acknowledged as the best out there. It is a pain (or tedious) to start with because you'll get a request for each program that accesses the net, but once you've either given it or denied it permission, it remembers the setting and uses that from that point on. It's also amazing how much stuff "dials home".

http://www.ZoneLabs.com/

You'll also want to turn off the incoming alert notification, as that will drive you crazy too!

Interesting comments guys. There are many options available both freeware and paid-for and therefore a variety of personal preferences and views. As for the freeware there's bound to be a downside somewhere in either functionality or cost to upgrade or for support when there's enough deployed e.g. that's how McAfee and many similar companies started.

We have now seen the advent of new viruses such as Sasser which permeates through internet connections.

The original idea I put to the committee was that for every person (DSC member or otherwise) taking out a subscription via a web link on the DSC site, to the netQuest service, we would pay a finders fee directly to the DSC for the club to use as it saw fit. Unfortunately this is outside of the articles and objectives of the DSC according to Henners' reply.

If it was possible for me to recieve the finders fees and then pay the DSC as personal donations, would this increase interest and have more appeal and not contravene the club's articles and objectives?

Maybe the Web Team would like to comment on the relevance of AV and PC Firewalls as an independent and respected arbiter as they regularly post Virus alerts.

Regards to all


John C

Reply to Paul Charlton
 

Paul,

Good question.

I don't want to appear to be overselling the idea I put forward as the orginal intent as a DSC member, was to bring more funds into the club in an innovative way, whilst at the same time benefitting club members whilst they are online via e-mail or web.

I have included a Microsoft link which explains more about the new type of viruses that are now being written which I hope is useful:- https://www.microsoft.com/security/incident/sasser.asp

This also highlights the importance of keeping up to date with Windows patches. The netQuest service would offer you protection if your system was not patched to the latest versions.

What do you think of the Web Team giving us there comments and advice?

Kind regards


John C

I'm confused already :o

Well, I'm a bit confused but took Antonyes advice ,downloaded Zone Alarm (free) and after only couple of hours it's blocked 64 intrusions, 16 of those being high rated (?):o
Still, I feel a bit more protected from the www.:cool:

Weeksy, BlackICE
 

Yes BlackICE is the consumer Desktop product. I'm not surprised to hear you've had issues with it on Servers. If you've put it on 650 servers you must work in a large company so I guess management and visibility are key considerations.

BlackICE dates back to 1999 and was the original home user release from Network ICE Inc. as it was then. They were acquired in 2001 by ISS (Internet Security Systems). At the end of 1999 Network ICE launched ICEpac which was the corporate version and included BlackICE Agent for Servers which is what you should have been using if you bought around that time or into 2001/2.

Since the acquisition the corporate products and technology have been integrated into the RealSecure product set and the right product for servers is now RealSecure Server Sensor for Windows, Solaris, AIX HP-UX and Linux. The companion product for corporate desktops and laptops is RealSecure Desktop Protector.

BlackICE is till promoted as a boxed single user solution from PC World etc.

Perhaps we could have a longer chat sometime about this.

The netQuest service is designed to make things simple for small companies & home users and to reduce the confusion and mystique in this area.

Hope this helps.

See you at Keddington House tomorrow.

Kind regards


John

matt748
 

Pleased to see the thread promoted some discussion and you've taken some positive action.

Nice one.

Rgds

John C

a certain very large consulting organisation that I used to work for deployed BlackIce as part of their desktop image and had no end of problems with it .... suffice to say that they don't do it anymore ...

TP

I've now got the zonealarm. Trouble is you never know which ones to allow and which ones to reject!!