Wiring Question - firewall and BB

Fallschirmjager

Hi,

i have a question about wiring ..and security..so here goes

here is the kit

broadband connection
8 port switch (with upload on all ports)
wireless router and firewall
the wireless router (with firewall)


i have wired my house with cat 6 and it all passes to a the 8 port switch. i then connectied in the BB conenection to a port on the 8 port switch. i then added the wireless router to the switch....one final note, the wireless router is my DHCP server for the network...

my fear is (and i suspect) is that i am not using the firewall component of the wireless router for the BB connection thus exposing any hardwired pc to the web. Should i wire it BB, wireless router, switch or am i worried about nothing?


any wiring experts care to lend a hand?

thanks in advance

Foxwood

Fallschirmjager wrote:

Hi,

i have a question about wiring ..and security..so here goes

here is the kit

broadband connection
8 port switch (with upload on all ports)
wireless router and firewall

i have wired my house with cat 6 and it all passes to a the 8 port switch. i then connectied in the BB conenection to a port on the 8 port switch. i then added the wireless router to the switch....one final note, the wireless router is my DHCP server for the network...

my fear is (and i suspect) is that i am not using the firewall component of the wireless router for the BB connection thus exposing any hardwired pc to the web. Should i wire it BB, wireless router, switch or am i worried about nothing?

You should wire it BB, wireless router, switch. By default, any DSL "modem" delivered today is also a router and DHCP server, so unless you'll reconfigured the "modem" to disable this functionality, it may conflict with your wireless router, and cause confusion. Post the makes and models of your equipment, and you'll get more specific advice from people familiar wit the particular hardware you are using.

NutJob

Your wireless router is a NAT router and effectively a good firewall

NAT stands for Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_address_translation

Basically it means one iP adress can be split into multiple ips. So u can have multiple pcs connected to the Net at once.

The side effect of this is you get a degree of separation which is as good as any firewall.
The way it works its unable to allow Internet traffic to contact you without you first sending a request so when worms and nasty stuff come looking for you the router doesn't know what to do with the traffic so it drops the it.
This only makes sense when you consider u can have a few hundred devices connected to the Internet on one address.

The only thing you need to worry about is when stuff like spy ware gets in theres nothing to stop it calling home from inside.
So id be more worried about getting Xp Service pack 2 and fully patched + a good antvirus like avg and spybot.


When you get paranoid like me i add some extras like disabling wan pings and UPNP on the router.


obviously if it was a busniess enviroment id add more but that would only be to protect users from themselves(mostly)

The weakest link may be ur wireless router if u use wep other than that good and solid

Fallschirmjager

thanks ...advice taken last night...wired up and working ...so i just need to do a few remote test hacks to see that i still have me trousers on (security wise i mean!)

thanks again...

NutJob

This may help and doesnt cost you anything or try to scare you to get you to buy an av or zonealarm crap. Alot of these use terror tactics this one doesnt.

Youll quickly notice all your scanning is ur router and all you can scan remotely

https://www.grc.com/x/ne.dll?bh0bkyd2


This one is trying to sell you sygate that got bought by norton but same idea.
http://scan.sygatetech.com/