PC security

[Greyshadow]

Just how secure is Norton internet security (2005version) set at default levels. ie is my system as secure as Norton would have me/us believe or can people with top level knowledge still get in and snoop about if they wanted to, that is.




I know they are out there, but are they watching me !!!



Whos out there ?


Dunno, just know they are.

[allentrace]

I know they are out there, but are they watching me !!!



Whos out there ?


Dunno, just know they are.

Thats because you are running Kazaa.

[converge]

Your system is probably about as secure as anyone else running a firewall on Windows ... coupled with the fact that you are expecting Norton to know what to block/allow ... and the likely thought that you will (like most people) just hit the allow button when prompted because you don't really understand what it is asking .. <insert other common win32 usage bad habits>; probably not as secure as others running a firewall AND understanding the rules that they make.

I will keep the thread here until I see its direction. If it travels south it will be stuffed into a potato sack and forcibly brought to the town of Devnull.

[allentrace]

Your system is probably about as secure as anyone else running a firewall on Windows ... coupled with the fact that you are expecting Norton to know what to block/allow ... and the likely thought that you will (like most people) just hit the allow button when prompted because you don't really understand what it is asking .. <insert other common win32 usage bad habits>; probably not as secure as others running a firewall AND understanding the rules that they make.

I will keep the thread here until I see its direction, if it travels south it will be stuffed into a potato sack and forcibly brought to the town of Devnull.

To me there are two types of security. 1) Prohibitive - meaning what can you do to protect yourself ahead of the fact. 2) Intuitive - meaning the measures you know in order to stop an attack on your system, i.e. common sense... if you understood what to do and not to do when using your PC you would be much safer. So lay off the Porn and the freeware.

[Floydr47]

I don't know much about Norton 2005 (I run Kerio and/or B-Secure www.bsecure.com ), but I did try it for a short while, it seemed like a fairly decent security program, I liked the virus scanner in it. What I didn't like about it was that it was too "heavy"...used too much RAM. So I went back to Kerio and using an on-line scanner (BitDefender). What works for me doesn't necessarily work for everyone though. When it comes down to the bottom line, firewalls, anti-virus, pop-up blockers and the like are a matter of personal preference. I think you are probably safe with Norton set to default, but to be on the safe side I would also run programs like "HiJackThis", "Adaware", and "Spybot S&D" on a regular basis.

[[Syntax]]

All I know about the Norton Security Suite, is that it causes network problems
(shares that are not accessible, machines unable to join a domains, machines unable to get security rights from a server)

Dell is shipping thier machines preloaded with it, and many times I get to a work site I find network problems related to it being installed. I don't bother configuring it.. I've never really looked to see what it does, I just remove it.

I know it causes annoying boxes to popup constantly asking if you want to allow a program to send data. I mean between windows firewall, and a hardware firewall do you really need another firewall? (Maybe for outgoing packets)

But if your trying to detect outgoing or incoming packets on your machine I'd just use Ethereal.

[converge]

My knowledge of Norton 2005 is limited to what I see from an ISP perspective.

) People that don't even know what it is/does
) People that don't understand how/why it works
) People that lose connectivity by using the program and cannot regain it without contacting their ISP or Norton support
) People that lose connectivity from it when it performs its self updates and decides to block something really evil hackerish like.. you know, DNS UDP...
) People that try to temporarily disable it while troubleshooting connectivity issues, only to find that the programs executable is not running, the program is set to allow all traffic even if it were, and the program persists on blocking packets until the person grows enough balls to remove the software entirely.. guess what, their system works again?!?!

I have little respect for most of the major consumer software types (Norton,McAfee,Zonelabs,etc) for those reasons .. not to forget the fact that they're focus is to sell the feeling of security versus the knowledge/product to actually accomplish a reasonable level of protection, at the cost of sucking your system into the bowels of proc/mem usage hell.