How do you update Windows 7's firewall software?

[Lemonlimecake]

I don't see an option to update it's software, don't you need to update it to keep it up to date?

 

[mikeymikec]

Any vulnerabilities found in it would be fixed by Windows Update. There's no reason why it would need any kind of other update.

I think you're mistaking "firewall software" for some kind of detection system that says "I don't think this program is legit so I'm going to stop it from running on the system", which is the pseudo-firewall software that many "Internet Security" software makers peddle these days.

Firewall (to be more specific, "packet filter"*) software has one function: Allow nothing in except traffic that was requested by the system (e.g. you use a web browser, it makes requests and the data comes back), and traffic based on exception rules (e.g. "I have Skype running all the time. People need to be able to ring me so I have this piece of software listening out for that contact"). That's it.

* - the definition of 'firewall' I'm learnt involves inspecting the data packets even on an allowed port and to block anything that seems malformed or for example a brute-force attack on a service like say a mail server.

 

[XavierMace]

Firewall is simple either this source and destination is allowed to talk to each other or not. Inspecting the traffic is an IPS/IDS.