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The Radio 3 Boards > General Chat > The Coffee Bar > The IT Helpdesk. > Firewall inside router?
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Author Topic: Firewall inside router?  (Read 106 times)
time_is_now
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« on: 23:40:51, 08-09-2008 »
I believe wireless broadband routers have some sort of inbuilt firewall. I may be confused about this, and don't know any more detail, but I'm hoping someone else does ... Wink

Since Tiscali finally managed to get us up and running on wireless again the other week, I've had a few prompts from Norton saying it's blocked an attempt to attack my computer. I've often seen these announcements in the past on my dad's computer, but he doesn't connect through a router. I don't remember ever having one on my laptop before the wireless connection got buglered up a month or two ago. Now I get one every few days.

The most plausible explanation I can think of is that the router used to block such attempts before they got as far as my PC. Do I need to re-enable the firewall in the router itself? And how might I do so? I guess Norton is keeping me safe enough, but I'd rather return to the pre-July state of affairs if possible.
« Last Edit: 01:13:06, 09-09-2008 by time_is_now » Logged
The city is a process which always veers away from the form envisaged and desired, ... whose revenge upon its architects and planners undoes every dream of mastery. It is [also] one of the sites where Dasein is assigned the impossible task of putting right what can never be put right. - Rob Lapsley
stuart macrae
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ascolta
« Reply #1 on: 00:36:43, 09-09-2008 »
Usually you can access your router's settings, or control panel, by entering 192.168.2.1 in the address bar of your browser (sometimes the last digit is different - 0 or 2, for example). Depends on the router though. From there you can access the security/firewall settings and see if there's anything you can do in there. It can be a bit of a pain in the bum finding out what you need to do, but I've worked it out on a couple of routers I've had, and I'm no expert.

Updating the firmware can be a help with problems too, but make sure you back up the original firmware first!
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Andy D
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« Reply #2 on: 02:09:32, 09-09-2008 »
I'm certainly no expert as I've been wireless for less than a week but my BT Voyager 2110 router says it has a built in firewall - the spec says "Packet filtering firewall based on IP address, Port or Protocol" - and if I go to the Security section it says "IP filtering enabled". I hope so because I've had to turn off the Firestarter firewall on the laptop since I couldn't do certain things, eg post here. ZoneAlarm on my desktop doesn't appear to cause similar probs so I've been able to leave that turned on.
« Last Edit: 02:11:19, 09-09-2008 by Andy D » Logged
...trj...
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Awanturnik


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« Reply #3 on: 11:50:47, 09-09-2008 »
My old router (I'm on wireless now, so not sure what the set-up is) used to have a built-in firewall that was exceptionally secure, since it came up with a new IP address every time I used it: the only way anyone could gain access to my computer from outside was if they physically broke into my house and took the current address from the router itself.

We didn't run any virus software on any of our three computers (2 PC, one Mac) and the one time I did invest in Norton (I've mentioned this on another thread) it discovered 0 viruses after 4 years extensive and liberal internet usage. So my take is that the router firewall worked.
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