Firewall rulesets

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This is something I've been thinking about for some time is a general set of firewall rules. As most of us know a lot of home users (and some corporate ones too) tend to just install Zone Alarm, get annoyed by the pop-ups all the time and set the firewall to allow all traffic.

So I was thinking that maybe we could all define a set of a few general rules that would work for most people.

So here are a couple to get started with.

port 25 tcp allow outgoing
port 80 tcp allow incoming
port 110 tcp allow incoming

All other ports disallow

 

Block everything, and then open up ports as you need them. What could be simpler?

People complain because of a lack of security... then they complain when something is completely secure and they're prompted for authorization. For those people, I recommend they put their computer in a box and send it to me. Permanently.

 

How about this:

53 UDP out
80 TCP out (or whatever port you're proxying your access through)
25 TCP out/in (if you're running a mail server)

No other reason for a home user to be opening any other ports (unless you are torrenting or running a p2p client which requires it)

 

What about telling them to spend £30.00 on a hardware firewall? Does that solve the problem?

 

No - because if you spend 30 quid on a hardware firewall - unless that firewall is an old desktop PC with linux installed and something like Smoothwall running on top - and has been configured by someone that knows what they're doing - they will be lulled into a false sense of security as the 'firewall' will likely be shite

If you'd told them to spend 50 quid instead and got a Linksys WRT54G with alternative firmware, then they may be able to feel a little bit more secure - but only a little