Physical firewall on wireless home system?

[Charlie98]

Trying to get my security posture squared away here at the house, and am a little confused...

I have DSL service to the house (ATT) and run the computers off it with a wireless router (an older 2Wire with 'security enabled' whatever that means.) Do I need or is there such a device as a firewall in between the signal coming into the house and the router, or between the router and the wireless signal going to the computers? Currently I'm using MSE and the Window's firewall on all the computers (W7 on mine, XP SP3 on the others.)

I was reading MechBgon's guide to security, and he mentions using a router and a firewall, and I just want to make sure I'm not missing something.

 

[classy]

I run a smoothwall firewall with Url Filter. I have my cable modem that connects to my smoothie. That is then connected to a switch and all the pcs use the smoothie as a gateway. I have my wireless router acting as an access point. The smoothwall is the only firewall I use.

 

[SecurityTheatre]

Trying to get my security posture squared away here at the house, and am a little confused...

I have DSL service to the house (ATT) and run the computers off it with a wireless router (an older 2Wire with 'security enabled' whatever that means.) Do I need or is there such a device as a firewall in between the signal coming into the house and the router, or between the router and the wireless signal going to the computers? Currently I'm using MSE and the Window's firewall on all the computers (W7 on mine, XP SP3 on the others.)

I was reading MechBgon's guide to security, and he mentions using a router and a firewall, and I just want to make sure I'm not missing something.

To actually answer your question, most devices like the 2Wire that provide NAT and router services have a basic firewall. In fact, generally, using NAT *requires* that you have a firewall. Standard household style NAT is a one-to-many mapping and it is impossible to not firewall devices in that configuration.

If your internal devices get a private IP address (192.168.x.x or 10.x.x.x) you are probably fine. If you are paranoid, turn on the Windows firewall as well (though it may be on already and it may impact functionality like windows file sharing).

 

[Charlie98]

To actually answer your question, most devices like the 2Wire that provide NAT and router services have a basic firewall. In fact, generally, using NAT *requires* that you have a firewall. Standard household style NAT is a one-to-many mapping and it is impossible to not firewall devices in that configuration.

If your internal devices get a private IP address (192.168.x.x or 10.x.x.x) you are probably fine. If you are paranoid, turn on the Windows firewall as well (though it may be on already and it may impact functionality like windows file sharing).

I thought that was the case with my DSL router, just wanted to make sure. Now that I'm digging deeper in to what makes my computer run, I'm finding things that 'should be' but 'aren't.'

I don't do file sharing (although it's on the list...) at the moment, so no problems.

 

[Jeff7181]

Check out Astaro Firewall - they have a free home license, which includes just about every module (packet filter, anti-virus, mail forwarding, IPS, etc.) and it's an Enterprise class firewall. I run it on a $200 Intel Atom box with 2 GB of RAM. Inside the firewall I have a Linksys router that's just an access point.

I find it useful for blocking everything that comes from China.

 

[Lithium381]

depending on how much you want to do you can get an older netscreen firewall for about $20 that may serve your needs for casual browsing at layer 2, 3, and 4. if you have some spare hardware you can run UNTANGLE that has some pretty cool features. I ran that open for my apartment complex for a few weeks on a spare AP for free just to check it out and it was pretty decent.

 

[blankslate]

If you

To actually answer your question, most devices like the 2Wire that provide NAT and router services have a basic firewall. In fact, generally, using NAT *requires* that you have a firewall. Standard household style NAT is a one-to-many mapping and it is impossible to not firewall devices in that configuration. If your internal devices get a private IP address (192.168.x.x or 10.x.x.x) you are probably fine. If you are paranoid, turn on the Windows firewall as well (though it may be on already and it may impact functionality like windows file sharing).

If Charlie98 is willing to spend a few more dollars on his router he can also find ones with stateful packet inspection too.

This is a little outdated but it's a good beginning guide.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/117557/what_you_should_know_about_firewalls.html

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