Shields Up Helps Prevent Internet Hack Attacks at Home
Written: Mar 10 '00 (Updated Jul 31 '00)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Easy to use and understand, Helpful
Cons: Some instructions for power users only
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| Schinjay's Full Review: Shields Up |
Until a recent lazy, Aloha weekend, I had no idea how dangerous my sometimes meaningless meandering on the Internet had been.
Sure, I had heard the stories about these gigantic Internet servers like, Ebay, Yahoo, and the sort, biting the big one due to massive data overloads. I also envisioned the guilty hackers watching the evening news and laughing themselves silly at reports of the problems and hair-pulling they had wrought.
Even seeing all of that, I gave no thought to the fact that someone out there on the internet could, at any time, gain access to my computer and “beam up” all kinds of personal information and files to their system for their own use. I was playing Internet roulette with a loaded CPU!
All that changed when I noticed a blurb in the Sunday paper that mentioned a program called “Shields Up” (http://grc.com/ default.htm). I went to this sight and my eyes were opened to a whole new aspect of Internet security.
After spending a few minutes browsing through the ton of information Steve Gibson posts at GRC.COM, I knew a lot more about how my computer interacts with the Internet, and I became afraid…. Very afraid.
I ran the “Shields Up” test on my system and it told me just what ports were open for “beaming” from the Internet. This was very interesting, mainly because I had no idea I had that many potential leak points to begin with. The I learned, “Oh my God…” there are over 16,000 of them on a typical system.
Documentation at the site explained just what all this meant, and gave several ways to go about stopping the leaks.
For true power users, there were manual steps one could take to break the hardware and software bindings within the network settings of your system. I tried these and immediately incapacitated all of my net software. (Hey, I get credit for trying!)
For the rest of us, Mr. Gibson recommended several free “personal firewall” shareware solutions. The first of which was called ZoneAlarm 2.0.
Proceeding to the ZoneAlarm site (http://www.zonelabs.com/), I easily downloaded version 2.0 and installed it. The program is free, and future updates should be available online.
ZoneAlarm can work invisibly on your system, exposed solely by active icon on your System Tray, or can be more visible during Internet use, as a minimized active toolbar on your screen.
Setup was easy enough. Leaving the default settings in place, I then began my first truly “safe” surfing session on the Internet.
On your first few sessions, ZoneAlarm will ask you to teach it how to treat sites you visit. The good thing is that it learns not to bother you about frequently visited sites.
I found that the highest Internet safety setting was a little much for me. I didn’t want to interact with ZoneAlarm every time my AOL or browser twitched its nose. So I set my Internet security setting back to medium.
When I went back and ran the “Shields Up” test again, I found that my computer had suddenly become “stealthy” in regards to its exposure to the Internet. Boy, did I feel better. There was no way for an Internet intruder to get in and hack me into virtual flotsam.
After looking over all of Steve Gibson’s information at GRC.COM, I decided that this is a hardcore machine language guy that knows his stuff. So I’m keeping his bookmark in my favorites folder. And I’m going to stay up with what he’s got to say about safe surfing.
Give me full power, Scotty. Mr. Spock, let’s head for that bright site up on the right. Now that I’m better protected than many big, mega corporations out there, I feel much more secure traveling in this crazy Internet world.
That's my epinion! Mahalo for stopping by!
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
Schinjay
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Member: Steve Schindler
Location: San Antonio, Texas
Reviews written: 37
Trusted by: 57 members
About Me:
Steve Schindler writes his informative and humorous "Schindler's Cyber List" for epinions.com.
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