Security recomendations for small home business

[bensmithson]

Hi

I run a small business from home. We have 2 to 3 computers networked together (PC's and Macs). I use Zone Alarm and Norton AV to protect from nasties. Recently i did a security test on the Norton site and it came up with a list of vulnerabilities and recommended products (Norton Internet Security).

Should I:
upgrade to Norton IS?
purchase a low cost firewall? rather than use a free one? upgrade to zone alarm pro?
purchase a low cost hardware firewall?


please bear in mind that i am a novice with regards to networking, IT and computer setups etc.

Any help / suggestions / reccomendations would be appreciated

thanks

ben

 

[hjm3857]

YES to all except the Norton IS (I have not tried it and don't know 1 way or the other)

I would strongly recomend a hardware firewall out of all the options.

On the Cheap side Linksys has a decent product with good 24/7 toll free tech support.

On the better side Cisco has a relatively inexpensive model of their PIX firewall that offers comercial grade security for $400 or so. I recomend the PIX, but it is not as simple or user friendly as the Linksys.

Cisco will give you 30 days toll free support with the PIX which should be enough to get it going, and you can get plenty of support out of these forums. I have written a few PIX configs for folks on forums like this on.

Remember the tools are cheap when compared to a trashed system, or lost data.

Jay Mosser
jaym@optymgroup.com

 

[hnd]

The solution you need depends on your applications you are running on the internet.

If you are only using the http: and Email service Zonealarm would be enough. But one thing: Zone Alarm is free for private use only. You have to buy a licence for Zonealarm anyway.

Norton IS has more facilities to setup. But there are more possibilities to setup a nonsense if are a non experienced user.

A third feature you forgot: Create strict regulations for your people to use the computer.
For example:
Never use private Software.
Never use Downloaded Software like ICQ.....
.......

An additional feature you should think about is use a Proxyserver for Internetaccess. In that case you will have a log of the complete Internet activities in your Company


The Solution of HJM3857 are absolutely correct, but I think for your purposes it is a little bit Overengineering in it.


hnd
hasso55@yahoo.com

 

[bensmithson]

Many thanks hnd and jay for your input

I shall update zonealarm to za pro immediately

We have a proxy server set up on one of the machines (602Pro Lan Suite) which works very well (for our needs).

Most activity is http and email. I do like Jays idea of the Linksys router/firewall as well as possibly other Linksys file storage products. At one point i was considering a cheap dell server but put off by cost and technical set up (for my needs). I'd rather spend my pounds on a new computer rather than server.

Many thanks again

ben

 

[bensmithson]

If i was to consider the hardware firewall option (such as the linksys) would i still require a software firewall?

Thanks again

 

[havanajoe]

A linksys cable/dsl router would be your cheapest and easiest way to go. I have one installed for my home network and it works great. Just to make sure that nothing was coming in that wasn't supposed to I installed BlackICE Defender on my workstation inside the network and I didn't get a single attack so it reassured me that the linksys was doing its job. Also with the linksys you can set it up to limit which computers have internet access if you wanted to. By default all connections that are initiated from the outside are dropped. I have not run into any problems with mine in the 2+ years that I have been running behind one.