Using Your Firewall against Spam
Though the internet is a
great resource for businesses, students, and the curious, it also resembles a
dangerous urban environment where rules are broken and the innocent are
victimized on a daily basis. Just as it
is in the real world, your vehicle to success can be easily hijacked if the
appropriate anti-theft measures are not put in place. When your computer is connected to the web,
your operating system and personal information may be vulnerable to various
attacks from schemers, hackers, and spammers.
Protecting your system and personal security
Similar to how physical
viruses operate, a computer virus will run wild in a host machine and
inevitably spread its infection to a large number of innocent victims. In both cases, awareness and prevention is
often more effective than the actual remedy itself. It all begins by stopping the virus spreaders
before they even reach your system. One
method of defense that can help you make sure of this is a firewall program.
Understanding anti-spam firewalls
Like those designed to
fight off security threats, anti-spam firewall does a great job at keeping
virus writers and determined spammers at bay.
While no program can be considered one hundred percent hacker proof,
many of them work well at what they were designed to do - prevent spam from
reaching your inbox.
Any computer that is
connected to the web via broadband or dial-up should have some type of firewall
installed at the bare minimum.
Anti-virus and anti-spyware applications are also recommended to evade
more serious system threats.
An ideal firewall
application will have the ability to conceal ports that hackers seek out when
looking to acquire access to your operating system. It should also be able to keep you aware of
any attempts at intrusion by providing detailed reports of the activity. Some of the best prevention comes in the form
of two-way firewall programs that block incoming threats or outbound threats to
prevent infections such as a Trojan horse, virus, or malware being installed
and distributed to other systems.
Choosing appropriate anti-spam firewalls
Microsoft has addressed
the ongoing problem of spam and viruses by integrating firewall applications
that are built-in with their operating system software. By default, this feature is enabled on
systems, such as updated versions of XP and the new Windows Vista. Unfortunately, many users will disable the
function to avoid being annoyed by frequent message pop-up warnings and
indicators. Unless you have plans of
implementing another type of firewall software or hardware to protect your
computer, this function should always remain enabled.
There are a few good spam
firewall applications available for free, including Zone Alarm and Zone Alarm
Pro. Though neither of them comes
included with utilities to monitor and prevent adware, they are effective
solutions to begin with and can help you to properly address highly probable
threats in regard to the security of your system.
A quality anti-virus
program should be used as a backup just in case hackers and spammers are able
to penetrate your firewall. The program
should be configured to automatically quarantine or delete any security threats
that are detected. Remember to keep all
of your programs updated with the latest patches and never open unsolicited
messages or the suspicious attachments that accompany them.
