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Holey Firewall
by By Alan Lynn — NOCCC, edbytes@bigfoot.com - February 22, 2001 at 13:48:03:
You as an informed computer enthusiast have protected your computer. You practice safe hex, right? You have an up to date virus program, and now that the Internet is so prolific, you know that you need a firewall. Therefore, you read the reviews and you install the firewall, ah safe at last.Well not quite, many firewalls have a flaw. Now they didn’t know it was a flaw until the crackers took advantage of this unnoticed problem. By the way, a hacker is a person who loves computers. A cracker is a destructive person. The flaw is in how the firewall decides who is safe and who is not. Put simply, you need an invitation to get in. the problem is that the crackers know how to crash the party. Just forge your own invitation.
Forging headers is an old trick for crackers; much of the spam you receive has a forged header. Well what do you do about this? One person has been very vigilant in seeing problems and in coming up with elegant solutions, Steve Gibson. You can see these solutions at http://www.grc.com.
Because of the attention this has received, several firewall makers have improved their product. You need the latest edition to take advantage of this. Check the list at grc.com to see if your firewall makes the grade.
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