Contrasting Two Firewalls

Essay by PaperNerd ContributorUniversity, Bachelor's November 2001

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Contrasting two Firewalls The Internet is being used more and more everyday, and everyone knows that they are completely safe while using it. This is a common mistake made by many Internet users. Not only are more and more people using the Internet, but more and more people are being attacked on it too. Firewalls are now a necessary form of protection. Sygate Personal Firewall and Blackice Defender are both good firewalls, however their protection varies in the way they protect ports, incoming attacks, and outgoing attacks.

Ports are often attacked or intruded upon. They are the place where attacks originate, which makes them a priority to protect. Sygate Personal Firewall has a user-friendly port monitoring system. Blackice Defender blocks important ports, and monitors activity on the rest. Sygate can only report an attack on a port, and has no way of stopping the attack, however, Blackice will report and block the attack.

If opted, Blackice also has the unique feature to trace the attack, and will retrieve information on the attacker such as phone numbers and addresses. Ports are important because of how often they are attacked, however the actual damage that can be done through a port is minor compared to the damage that can be done through an incoming attack.

Incoming attacks are often the most devastating form of attack. Ping floods, which will reduce Internet speed to a crawl and at times crash a computer, are a common form of incoming attack. Denial of Service (DoS) attacks will also render the local computer useless. Sygate is no help in defending against incoming attacks. They will not show up in the system log, and will not be blocked in anyway. Blackice excels in the area of incoming attacks. It will keep a good system log of...