SCOUG-HELP Mailing List Archives

<< Previous Message << >> Next Message >>

Date:	Tue, 30 Apr 2002 21:01:32 PST7
From:	Peter Skye <pskye@peterskye.com >
Reply-To:	scoug-help@scoug.com
To:	scoug-help@scoug.com
Subject:	SCOUG-Help: Re: firewall failures

Content Type: text/plain

=====================================================
If you are responding to someone asking for help who
may not be a member of this list, be sure to use the
REPLY TO ALL feature of your email program.
=====================================================

leganii@surfree.com wrote:
>
> I think you probably noticed that all the
> products mentioned in that article are
> peculiar to one particular venders OSs.
> http://www.newsbytes.com/news/02/176213.html

Peter Skye wrote:
> Who is the vendor? I've reread the
> article but don't see the common ground.

Sheridan George wrote:
>
> Sure you do - they are all software firewalls.

Umm, okay. "Windows"? I'm guessing.

Sheridan then added:
>
> Don't give me any sass about a hardware firewall being a
> software one in reality because software is what makes
> it go. A 'real' software firewall shares the CPU with
> the OS and other programs it is trying to protect. That
> is why they have a special vulnerability.

Okay. What difference does it make whether the firewall is
running on an independent box or on the application box? Can you give
an example of an intrusion methodology which succeeds for a common box
firewall but fails for a separate box firewall?

Or suppose you have a separate firewall PC with two NICs and
running a software firewall and all it does is forward packets (what
comes in on NIC #1 goes out on NIC #2, what comes in on NIC #2 goes out
on NIC #1) with appropriate firewall blocking of undesirable packets of
course. What's the difference if you then move the firewall software
from this separate firewall PC to the application (user's) PC? Why does
the system suddenly become more vulnerable?

- Peter

=====================================================

To unsubscribe from this list, send an email message
to "steward@scoug.com". In the body of the message,
put the command "unsubscribe scoug-help".

For problems, contact the list owner at
"rollin@scoug.com".

=====================================================

Return to [ 30 | April | 2002 ]

SCOUG, Warp Expo West, and Warpfest are trademarks of the Southern California OS/2 User Group. OS/2, Workplace Shell, and IBM are registered trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation. All other trademarks remain the property of their respective owners.