Unquestionably they should have local firewalls on their laptops, because otherwise each laptop becomes an open conduit into your internal network, bypassing your firewall and other protective measures.
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Question
Remote users on my network & Security
All remote users on our network have the following - notebook with Win2K, Linksys DSL Router and High speed internet (either Cable or DSL). They use VPN software to connect to our network.
My question is this: Should they have a personal software firewall as well?
I've been researching ZoneAlarm and others and I'm just curious as to all your thoughts on the subject.
Thanks.
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Answers
Thanks for the input guys. With no ports open by us on the Router - Isn't that enough security? Do you guys know of any online articles explaining why you need more then a hardware firewall? That would be good to read.
I'd be more comfortable with a personal firewall and all I'm really doing here is trying to gather input on what others are doing.
If a personal firewall is in the plan - then I can I have some recommendations please.
Thanks.
Doesn't matter which ports are open on the router because it's still open to the VPN connection. Since that connection gives the laptop user fairly extensive access to your internal network a determined hacker could do some pretty serious damage without ever having to tangle with your firewall or router.
Yeah, essentially your firewall is just keeping activity on certain ports down, but it's allowing in VPN traffic, because VPN connections are in nature secure. No need to screen a secure channel, obviously if the session is established than certain security measures were met. The problem is a hacker compromising one of these laptops doesn't have to go through your company's firewall anymore, he's got a secure channel into your environment by using the laptop as a gateway, in a manner of sorts.
Given your situation, I would FORCE these remote users to get a hardware DSL/CABLE firewall. You can pick up a nice Linksys router/firewall for both cable and DSL that will perform nicely for you, and they're only about $100 a piece. The reason I say go with hardware over software is that you can't rely on users to keep that software running, or patched, etc. They may get tired of having Zone Alarm pop up saying that there was an illegal port access or some other various error message and just decide to disable it. Users don't understand the danger, they just want convenience. The hardware router/firewall solution is extremely easy to implement, and it won't allow user's to bypass the security if they want Internet access.
Long experience has shown me, users are not to be trusted. Don't give them a chance or a choice to inevitably screw you over, go with the $100 hardware firewall/router solution and you're good to go.
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by: tituba2Posted on 2002-01-28 at 14:34:38ID: 6762217
We require all our users using cable/dsl to have a personal firewall. However, Zone Alarm has had issues with Windows in the past. I'd purchase Norton or the like.