Examples of Threats:
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Unauthorized access to your home network or a computer on your home network through your Internet connection
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Unauthorized installation of software programs onto a computer or device on your home network
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Unauthorized access by a computer or software program to the Internet, exchanging unintended information
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Using compromised computers on your home network as anonymous sources for launching attacks on others
Our Tips:
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Install a stateful-packet-inspection firewall between your broadband Internet connection and home network.
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Install personal firewall software on each of the computers in your home network.
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Periodically monitor access logs and firewall rules to ensure continued protection.
The term firewall borrowed from the construction industry, where a hardened fire-proof material, such as cinder block, is built between two sections of a building so that if one catches on fire, the other might not.
A firewall in computer terms provides similar protection, by shielding one part of a network (say, your home network) from another part (say, the Internet) that may be "on fire." Now, the Internet is not exactly in flames, but it is a "dirty" network, meaning few rules and regulations apply, and those that do exist are often circumvented by some folks. You can view the Internet kind of like the Wild West of networks.
Firewalls are one of the most important lines of defense you need for your home network. You may ask yourself, "Why are firewalls so important? After all, I have been using the Internet for years with a dialup connection and never needed one before."
The answer is simple. If you only have to go into a bad part of town occasionally, maybe you can just be careful. If you have to live in that part of town all the time, it is probably wise to lock the doors and carry some type of protection.
With high-speed broadband service, your Internet connection is always on, meaning as long as your broadband modem is connected to your home network and it is powered on, your home network and all the computers on it have a connection to the Internet. You are no longer just visiting the bad side of town; with broadband, you are now living there.
Unchecked, hackers, bored or mischievous neighbors (or their kids), or just other people with too much time on their hands can try to access your home network through your broadband connection from anywhere in the world. Broadband also provides hackers with high-speed connections to do a lot more hacking. Once hacked, you cannot undo what you may lose, such as personal data, access to financial accounts, and so on. So, the only real option is to prevent yourself from being hacked in the first place.
Firewalls provide a means to block unwanted visitors from gaining access to your home network, the computers on it, and the information those computers contain.
Why Do I Need Firewalls?
Why would someone want to access your home network? Well, for a lot of reasons, ranging from simple theft of the information on your computers to hijacking your computers and using the anonymity they can provide to conduct other illegal activities. It is impossible to list here all the examples, but let's consider two common ones.
First, most people regularly store information, such as e-mail, spreadsheets, and even passwords to online accounts (eBay and PayPal, for example) on their computers, hacker can launch what is called a brute-force attack to gain access to one of your computers. Tools to perform such attacks, which are easily available on the Internet, use dictionary files to repeatedly attempt to guess your password to remotely log in to your computer or to access a shared drive.
If left unchecked, hackers can attempt thousands of times until they succeed. When into the computer, they can simply help themselves to whatever information you have stored there.
In the second example, it is not the information itself on the computers the hacker is interested in, but enlisting your computer (probably along with hundreds or thousands of others) into what is called a boot army. Bot armies are when a hacker has taken over control of many computers and then uses the computers for illicit means, such as to attack other computers or corporate websites
By exploiting a security flaw in the computer's operating system, hackers can install a small program to take remote control of your computer. After doing so on hundreds or thousands of other computers, hackers can then go after their target with a DDoS attack by instructing all the remote-control computers in the bot army to start sending web page requests to a website such as www.microsoft.com and repeat the requests as often as possible. If successful, the tens of thousands of requests can cause a spike in the web server and possibly cause it to fail because of overloading. If they cannot cause the server to fail entirely, it might be possible to disrupt or slow down the service to legitimate folks who are trying to access the website.
This is called a DDoS attack. If the attack were conducted from a single computer, the website owners might be able to recognize a pattern and simply block that computer from making future requests. However, if the attack is coming from thousands of people's home computers, how can the website owner distinguish legitimate requests from an attack? That's the point of a bot army: scale, anonymity, and stealth.
We do not pretend to have the answers to why people do such things. Quite frankly, many of them are highly intelligent folks, who for whatever reason have decided to run against society's grain. Regardless of why, they do it; so, it is important for you not to be a victim.
