Firewall Options

[Conundrum]

I'm curious to know what software firewall solutions people are currently using and why. For home, small business, and large network environments. What do you think does the best job for each one, and why?

 

[Goosemaster]

umm....sorry but your question concerns a very complex topic.

What type of environment are we talking about here: home or business?

 

[JackMDS]

Originally posted by: Conundrum
I'm curious to see what the opinions of people who have used various options for both recommend and why. Pros and cons to the question of existing hardware and software firewall solutions. Including if applicable custom configurations and suggestions on what ports are the highest risk and why.

If you want some one to write here a Book for you, I do not think that it is feasible.

May be this can Help, http://www.amazon.com/Essential-Compute...urity-Everyones-Internet/dp/1597491144

If you have a Broadband Internet, connection and you want to protect your self.

May be this can Help, http://www.ezlan.net/firewall.html

Freeware Security suit for Internet Connection Protection.

 

[Goosemaster]

If you want some one to write here a Book for you, I do not think that it is feasible.

 

[Conundrum]

Ok, I'll amend my initial post in a moment to asking people software firewall programs. =]

 

[xSauronx]

Originally posted by: Conundrum
Ok, I'll amend my initial post in a moment to asking people software firewall programs. =]

then just check the security thread in the software forum, and keep software questions in that thread, or at least that forum

 

[n0cmonkey]

I use a mix of IPTables and Packet Filter.

 

[cmetz]

Conundrum, for home, WRT54GL with third party software, can do a lot and has a lot of real-router/real-firewall features at a SOHO price.

For small to medium sized businesses, OpenBSD/pf if the company's open minded, or ISR/IOS if they're not. The cisco solution is buggy as hell but conservative business types will buy cisco. I also do a lot with NetScreen firewalls, they have better performance and lower cost vs. an ISR, but they're just as buggy, much more painful to administer, and a harder vendor to convince business folks to buy from. There are a lot of new products in this space, such as the Juniper security routers and the cisco ASA, that look interesting but I haven't had an excuse to play with yet.

For large businesses, you're typically layering more specialized devices, getting some high-performance firewalls, maybe some load balances, some IDSs, spam filters, etc. Then it's not easy to recommend, it really depends on needs and budget.

For Windows software firewall, I've been pushing folks to use Sunbelt Kerio. It's okay, not great, not horrible, but I haven't had any problems with it. I've had a lot of problems with ZoneAlarm updates trashing Windows to the point where a reinstall is required, and in my experience Symantec products also have a habit of trashing everything beyond repair.

 

[Conundrum]

Thanks for the detailed reply cmetz. I was hoping I wouldn't get thread crapped for my interest in the topic. It seems as though I'm posting in the wrong area though. I thought it would be applicable to post it in the network threat since I consider firewall software to be directly associated with networks. Since you wouldn't use the software without a network.

Kind of a gray area I suppose. I played around with firewall software a long time ago. Like Blackice Defender or something. I'm probably remembering it wrong. I think Panda had its own little software firewall solution as well that I played with. One from Norton that I'm betting is still around since Symantec is such a big company. Anyway, thanks for the input. I've got a friend who runs a small business and he was asking me about it one day. So I figured I'd just post here and see what the experts had to say.

Originally posted by: cmetz
Conundrum, for home, WRT54GL with third party software, can do a lot and has a lot of real-router/real-firewall features at a SOHO price.

For small to medium sized businesses, OpenBSD/pf if the company's open minded, or ISR/IOS if they're not. The cisco solution is buggy as hell but conservative business types will buy cisco. I also do a lot with NetScreen firewalls, they have better performance and lower cost vs. an ISR, but they're just as buggy, much more painful to administer, and a harder vendor to convince business folks to buy from. There are a lot of new products in this space, such as the Juniper security routers and the cisco ASA, that look interesting but I haven't had an excuse to play with yet.

For large businesses, you're typically layering more specialized devices, getting some high-performance firewalls, maybe some load balances, some IDSs, spam filters, etc. Then it's not easy to recommend, it really depends on needs and budget.

For Windows software firewall, I've been pushing folks to use Sunbelt Kerio. It's okay, not great, not horrible, but I haven't had any problems with it. I've had a lot of problems with ZoneAlarm updates trashing Windows to the point where a reinstall is required, and in my experience Symantec products also have a habit of trashing everything beyond repair.

 

[Goosemaster]

Conundrum,

Please don't take this the wrong way, but you are asking for a LOT of information.
Cmetz gave you a great start with Cisco, Juniper, and grey-box (BSD or Linux) for larger environments, but for smaller environments, there are so many OS-flavors that it would take an eternity to spell out.
I would search the forums for firewall/security, search BSD forums for packetfilter, search windows forums (or the software forum on here) for firewalls etc.

There is a lot of information out there if you only look

As for your friend, that is a different question altogether. Tell us about the environment.