Bits'n'Bytes

As heard on CJCD

Episode 31

Today I'm going to explain why you should have a firewall installed on your computer. But to do that, I have to quickly explain how hackers can find and attack your computer.

A lot of the people on the 'net that you and I would consider hackers are younger folks with too much time on their hands. The really, really good ones will get by almost any security a home user would use, but the really, really good ones probably have better things to do. The script kiddies, as their called on the 'net, use software created by the really good ones to try to get into whatever they can find.

If you've ever heard of the term door pusher, that's what a lot of so-called hackers do. Door pushers walk down the halls of big hotels and give the door on every room a little shove, hoping to find one that isn't latched properly. They then get easy access to whatever you left in plain view. Without a proper firewall, you've left your door unlatched. Hacker-types use programs called port-scanners to look for computers with no firewall.

A port-scanner is a program that goes out onto the internet and basically knocks on all the doors. It kinda asks every address in a range on the internet "Are you there?". If you don't have a firewall, your computer says, "Yeah, I'm here". Now they know where to find you. If your firewall isn't set up right, your computer might say something like "Nope, nobody here". Hmmmm…. If nobody's here, how'd you answer? Now they know you're there and trying to hide something, which might actually be worse. A good firewall, set up properly, won't answer at all. This fools the port-scanning programs into thinking there's no computer at all at that address, and it moves on.

Stay tuned next week when I talk about routers.

I’m Computer Dave, thanks for your time.