beginner's question..

Folk:

When networked (cable access, wireless), I understand that the router
is usually (always?) protected by anti-virus -hack -spam software, so
do individual 'puters need their own anti-software as well? what is
the relationship between the software on the router and that on the
individual 'puters? how do the different installations interact?
--

Regards and Happy Trails,

Scott Needham
Boulder, Colorado, USA

Scott Needham wrote:

> Folk:
>
> When networked (cable access, wireless), I understand that the router
> is usually (always?) protected by anti-virus -hack -spam software, so
> do individual 'puters need their own anti-software as well? what is
> the relationship between the software on the router and that on the
> individual 'puters? how do the different installations interact?

If you are talking about a garden-variety consumer-level router
(Linksys, D-Link, Netgear, etc.) it does not have any antivirus
software on it. It works as a simple firewall by using NAT (Network
Address Translation) and you can block ports with it. There is no
"anti-virus-hack-spam" software on one of these routers. If you have a
different kind of router, post back with what it is.

All Windows machines that are connected to any kind of network
(Internet, local area network with other machines with Internet access
and/or which can have files put on them from outside - floppies, cd,
etc.) must have installed a current version antivirus program. This av
should be full-featured, version not earlier than 2004, and the virus
definitions subscription must be current and definitions kept updated.
IMO, all Windows machines should also have a software firewall in this
scenario. If you have XPSP2, the Windows Firewall is fine. If you have
older machines running Win9x/ME, they should have third-party firewalls
on them.

Malke
--
Elephant Boy Computers
www.elephantboycomputers.com
"Don't Panic!"
MS-MVP Windows - Shell/User

No. Consumer routers are usually not protected by any anti-virus (etc.)
software and do not offer any anti-virus protection. Their main benefit
comes from their use of NAT, which tends to prevent incoming connections,
which protects against worms. However, in some cases one needs to allow
incoming connections (e.g., file server, video conferences, etc.) and most
routers support something called UPnP, which allows applications to ask a
router to forward incoming connections on particular ports to them. You can
also set this manually so that incoming connections on particular ports are
sent to particular computers on your network. In these cases, the
protection offered by your router is next to none on those ports and you
have to hope that the computers that are receiving the incoming connections
are not susceptible to buffer overflow (etc.) attacks on those ports.

Therefore, when using a router, you will be reasonably well-protected
against worms as long as you do not turn on UPnP or some other kind of port
forwarding. However, some network games and applications need to allow
incoming connections, and so you may need to turn on UPnP for them to
operate properly and hope that they are not vulnerable to attacks on the
ports they are opening. Anti-spam protection may be done by your ISP and by
software on your computer (the best anti-spam protection is to never reply
to spam and to keep your e-mail address off the internet; i.e., change your
e-mail address slightly when posting in newsgroups so that a person can
figure it out but a computer cannot). Anti-virus protection should be done
on your computer because your ISP can scan e-mail attachments but cannot
scan everything sent to your computer over a network. Be sure to update
anti-virus software nightly.

Finally, if you get a wireless router, configure it using a wired
connection, change the default password, and use WPA encryption for wireless
communications.

-Yves

"Scott Needham" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> Folk:
>
> When networked (cable access, wireless), I understand that the router
> is usually (always?) protected by anti-virus -hack -spam software, so
> do individual 'puters need their own anti-software as well? what is
> the relationship between the software on the router and that on the
> individual 'puters? how do the different installations interact?
> --
>
> Regards and Happy Trails,
>
> Scott Needham
> Boulder, Colorado, USA
>

Part of the confusion in this area results from a fundamental change in
network security theory. You will have no trouble finding articles in which
the only firewall on the network is a perimeter firewall and individual
machine firewalls are either not recommended or actively discouraged. Today
it is increasingly recommended that you maintain both a perimeter firewall
and individual host firewalls. The reason for the change in approach is
almost entirely due to the proliferation of high speed Internet connections
and the attendent increase in spyware/malware attacks. For a pretty good
summary - See:

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sec...ty/firewall.ms
px

Doug Sherman
MCSE, MCSA, MCP+I, MVP

"Scott Needham" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> Folk:
>
> When networked (cable access, wireless), I understand that the router
> is usually (always?) protected by anti-virus -hack -spam software, so
> do individual 'puters need their own anti-software as well? what is
> the relationship between the software on the router and that on the
> individual 'puters? how do the different installations interact?
> --
>
> Regards and Happy Trails,
>
> Scott Needham
> Boulder, Colorado, USA
>

Hi
Entry Level Cable/DSL Router’s NAT Firewall provides partial security
against “Junk” that might get into your system via Internet connection.

How Come? See here for simple explanation:
http://www.ezlan.net/firewall.html

Basic Protection of a Computer/Network connected to the Internet should
consist of:

1. Router’s NAT Firewall
2. Software Firewall
3. Antivirus Program
4. AntiSpyware program.
You can buy a comprehensive Security suites. However since the issue is so
important if you can not effort such a protection there are Free programs
that work as well as the commercial suites:
http://www.ezlan.net/security.html
Jack (MVP-Networking).



"Doug Sherman [MVP]" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> Part of the confusion in this area results from a fundamental change in
> network security theory. You will have no trouble finding articles in
which
> the only firewall on the network is a perimeter firewall and individual
> machine firewalls are either not recommended or actively discouraged.
Today
> it is increasingly recommended that you maintain both a perimeter firewall
> and individual host firewalls. The reason for the change in approach is
> almost entirely due to the proliferation of high speed Internet
connections
> and the attendent increase in spyware/malware attacks. For a pretty good
> summary - See:
>
>
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sec...ty/firewall.ms
> px
>
> Doug Sherman
> MCSE, MCSA, MCP+I, MVP
>
> "Scott Needham" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
> news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> > Folk:
> >
> > When networked (cable access, wireless), I understand that the router
> > is usually (always?) protected by anti-virus -hack -spam software, so
> > do individual 'puters need their own anti-software as well? what is
> > the relationship between the software on the router and that on the
> > individual 'puters? how do the different installations interact?
> > --
> >
> > Regards and Happy Trails,
> >
> > Scott Needham
> > Boulder, Colorado, USA
> >
>
>