Re: End-user laptop firewall available?
On 9 December 2013 09:12, Hey, Lukas (KRZ) <L.Hey@krz.de> wrote:
> C'mon guys,
>
> you spend way too much time discussing packet filtering rules and programs for a
> machine which is hooked up via modem. Of course you can avoid things that "might > happen" when dialed up or connected to some public wifi.
Just my 2c.
In this day and age a "USB dialup modem" might be a "3G connection
with a USB modem provided by a Telco company". That type of connection
gives you a public IP in an address space anyone can (and will) probe
and attack.
Publi WiFi is also risky, even if the address space is private, if the
WiFi is run by a densely populated area people (or trojans running in
other people's devices) might want to see what "machines are out
there" in the WiFi and probe/attack them. I've seen this quite a lot
in public hotspot areas.
Either way I think a firewall with a basic configuration is useful
anyway. Should you inadvertently install or enable something that
might be compromised from the outside you are making it more difficult
for them to do.
Also, since your device is not using anyother networked devices and
not sharing files/services/printers, the firewall configuration is
going to be simpler than, e.g., a laptop which is part of a LAN and
wants to access UPnP devices and use auto-discovery protocols (such as
avahi)
> You should rather worry if the announced gateway at the public library is the real
> one ;)
True, ARP spoofing attacks are very common over public WiFi
connections (as a first step to MITM attacks). I've seen this
frequently in public WiFi at some congress I've attended to.
That's why you should exercise caution when using a WiFi network. I.e.
if you go to a SSL site and see a "invalid certificate" prompt from
your browser it's probably somebody trying to MITM you.
Regards
Javier
Reply to: