How To Make Your Firewall More Secure

In his article Debunking The Top 10 Security Myths Lee Clemmer states, "While the importance of firewalls cannot be overstated, even the most secure firewall available won't provide security if error, ignorance, carelessness, apathy, or company policy results in an insecure configuration." And he is, of course, absolutely right. This article looks at some easy steps you can take to make your firewall more secure.

Computer users are of different types and they access the Internet for a wide range of different activities. Talking specifically about small companies, they decide to assess individual users and their work requirements and then setup their firewalls appropriately, according to their usage habits. It is very common that some employees often toggle their firewall to permit instant messengers in and out. Similarly, a home Internet user might authorize a certain site to show popups while another user might disable all popups.

These tweaks might not seem harmful but in fact they are. They can create platforms for different attacks, so that when a malicious program finally succeeds in gaining access through the firewall, it will become very difficult to tell where the firewall weakness is located and what needs to be done to get rid of that weakness.

It becomes even more difficult to identify a problem when having different settings for different users on the same computer (i.e. which ports on a firewall to block, which applications to allow access to, etc.). Therefore, besides having a firewall, keeping the same security settings for all computers and user accounts within a computer is the best way to make a firewall secure.

A firewall software can be thought of as a defensive wall around your computer that keeps the dangerous types of information from entering into your PC while letting the authorized information pass through it. The firewall is a necessity because it always fights a combat against hackers who use all their effort in creating the most dangerous malware in the world.

Some of this malware becomes successful in breaching the firewall and entering your PC. Therefore, a firewall must always be supplemented with an combatant antivirus program, which scans information that has gotten through the firewall and deletes the malware that it detects. This way, any malware that eventually succeeds in dodging your firewall on its way to your computer, the antivirus program will catch and vanish it.

Pop-up blockers and anti spyware programs are great supplements to your firewall and you should also use them. The conjunction of these and the firewall will help limit the number of different types of malware that your computer may face, thus help make your firewall more secure.

If you use Microsoft's Internet Explorer, you can make it more secure by doing some easy tweaks. Read securing Internet Explorer for instructions. In addition to that, you can use Microsoft's free software called Windows Defender to add extra security while you surf Internet.

While a firewall can protect from almost every attack by a hacker, this must be kept in mind that if a hacker is able to gain access to your computer by any chance, the firewall can be rendered useless. Let alone hackers, anyone can gain access to your sensitive data if they know your password. For example, if anyone wants to gain unauthorized access to your computer, he or she does not need breach your firewall; rather he or she can guess your password instead. That is why, it is essential that you use strong passwords that are unbreakable.

Creating a strong password basically requires the following things:

1. Length. If the password is short in length, this makes it easier for the hacker to guess the password by simply guessing it. Therefore, it is best to have a password of 6 to 8 characters. Longer passwords can quickly frustrate most hackers, even if they use password breaking tools.

2. Structure. Passwords consisting of combination of digits, characters and symbols provide the best security, even against powerful password breaking software. If you use a simple password instead like "applestreet", it will then become too easy for even the ones other than the hackers to guess it.

3. Uniqueness. Just as you do not have one key for your door, car, garage, etc, you should never use the same password for all your access codes. Using a commonly used password can be guessed by your friends and colleagues easily. And if they succeed in stealing your password, you can expect them to misuse your online bank account, email accounts.

4. Frequency. The best practice after creating a strong password is to change it regularly. You should change your password idly after every 3-4 weeks. Doing this will narrow the chances for someone who might have stolen your password to misuse it.

For complete guide on creating an unbreakable password, visit How to create unbreakable passwords.