You can be attacked even when you're not using your computer!
You can only protect yourself so much by limiting where you surf on the net and deleting emails from people you don't know. We all know surfing bad sites, or opening an email attachment can expose us to viruses, worms, trojans, browser hijacks, browser exploits - the list is endless. But fewer people know about an even more serious threat - computer intrusions - someone reaching into your computer and stealing your information or installing programs to steal or destroy files.

Imagine a stranger breaking in and reading all of your emails and files. Think of all of the personal and private information you have on your hard drive. There are hackers on the Internet that would like to read them. Especially the parts about your credit card numbers, bank accounts, your Social Security number, your passwords and even the names and addresses of family and friends.

You need to protect all of that information with a firewall. Firewalls control the connections between your computer and other computers - both on the Internet and on your network. Their job is to screen out malicious traffic from the Internet before it can harm your computer. Our favorite firewall program for home and small office users is Desktop Firewall from Webroot.

The technical bits: Your computer connects to other computers and the Internet through a series of 'ports.' Ports are where information from other computers enters your computer, or where information you're sending to others leaves your computer. Sort of like you go through a door. You can think of a firewall as the security guard at the door. The guard prevents unauthorized people from entering, and stops people from stealing valuable stuff when they leave. The firewall 'guard' can lock some of the doors to your computer that you rarely use - stopping all traffic from coming and going through them. Our guard won't unlock those doors again until we give him our password to prove we're allowed to open them.

To connect to the Internet or your network, you need to leave some doors - ports - open. This is where our firewall guard really earns his money - checking the traffic entering and leaving. Our guard will recognize some of the traffic entering and leaving your computer and will let it pass. Sometimes, you'll want to connect to a site or program only temporarily. Our firewall guard can issue a 'visitor's pass' to let you connect. When you're done with the temporary connection, the firewall guard tears up that pass and no one else can enter or leave through that port until you say so. Sometimes our firewall guard won't know what to do when a stranger shows up at the door. When your firewall program encounters unknown data trying to enter or leave your computer, our guard will make it wait at the door while he calls upstairs to see if he should let the traffic in. You'll see a window pop up on your screen telling you that your program has found something it doesn't know how to handle. You'll have the option of locking that data out of your computer - temporarily or permanently - or you can let the data in with a one-time 'visitor's pass' or if you really like the data and think it is time to get serious with it, you can 'give it a key' so that program or computer can come and go anytime.

Your firewall guard is the primary defense against all sorts of computer attacks from the Internet. It can also help stop you from spreading viruses, worms or Trojans if you somehow become infected. When a virus or worm tries to send information from your computer, the firewall is likely to stop the outbound traffic. But, firewalls cannot protect you from all threats - remember, many attacks succeed by tricking you into unlocking the door for them by pretending to be useful programs and convincing you to open them.

Firewalls come either as software - a program you install on your computer - or hardware - a new computer box that you plug in between your computer and your Internet connection. Most home users and many small office networks can be protected by software firewalls that are less expensive and much easier to use. These programs have done well protecting our family and friends:

Install your firewall today - before hackers steal your information.