DSA and SSM

I had read in a post by Bellgamin the they are a good fit. How many folks run them both? Also Bellgamin what does DSA add to SSM pro? Thank you for the help.

 

I've never run them both together but i'd say that seeing SSM only has a very basic firewall DSA would add better firewall functionality plus it gives inbound protection.

 

I use DSA in lieu of a software firewall. Beyond that, DSA's system & email anomaly modules are non-duplicative of SSM & thus offer an added protection layer. DSA's process protection module IS duplicative, so I have not enabled it; but I do keep it "trained."

 

Thank you for the replies. Is there any program that would add significant protection to SSM? I have NOD32 and Comodo firewall.

 

SSM + NOD32 + Comodo fw constitute a formidible wall of protection. Two points to mention...

1- Be sure to turn off Comodo's HIPS module. It duplicates only a very small fraction of what SSM covers, but even so there might be some instability if you run both.

2- If you are on broadband (e.g., DSL, ADSL, cable), then by all means add a router. It need not be an expensive one. You can get some good Wilders router reviews HERE.

 

Bellgamin, I had to bypass the router due to my wifes Spade playing on Yahoo. I have a D-Link WBR-1310.wireless router. I have two computers in separate rooms .This one was wired to the router and the other wireless. She kept getting thrown off the games. I tried everything and nothing worked till I bypassed the router.

 

I had an interesting experience with DSA, installed with another firewall. Anyway I couldn't get rid of the networking component, I tried windows firewall trick but it just turned the firewall off and replaced it with DSA, no matter wot network component was always installed and kept reworking the network driver setup.
I was trying to get winpcap to work and thought DSA might be the reason of it not working, I found out later it wasn,t. But during this testing I had uninstalled DSA and after a bit firewall too, and very interesting things started to happen, antivir's folder, winpooch and another folder got wiped, their startups got reset, basically security got removed. This was on a fresh 2 day old install of xp and behind a nat'd router with firewall. I didnt load or run any risky files and can only assume either something managed to call out or DSA got some issues with uninstalling, I remember it leaving a driver after uninstall.
Suffice to say after formatting and reinstallin xp without dsa the problem didnt return, makes me very wary of this program.

 

If anyone is seeking to create a disaster, all he has to do is keep doing stuff like installing, uninstalling, tweaking this, fiddling with that -- something WILL collide or collapse eventually, or even sooner.

The above is especially true when messing around with security apps -- ANY security apps -- because nowadays many of them hook the kernel or other deep innards of Windows. It takes *special* or supplemental uninstall routines to get rid of some of them - such as Avast, NAV, etc.

If one wants to indulge in such dangerous play, then it is best to make an image beforehand. The absolutely BEST security is an image, on an external drive, made by an uninfected computer running sweet & clean and steady. Otherwise....

Beyond this point, there be dragons.

 

With due respect: I like to augment the above statement: "using an external HDD". You'll have to use a bootable CD to reformat your HDD and rewrite the MBR { edit:} before connection your machine to something like an external HDD or floppy. (Had once a real nasty sitting in the MBR and took me a month to disinfect the connected computeres - kept on spreading. None of the software was able to detect it and I tried half a dozen. :-( nearly pulled my hair out...) Alternatively have one of your backups on DVD and boot from CD to restore.

Leonardo

 

I'm not so sure. If i pick up some windows based malware which wrecks my system i can simply boot up acronis trueimage using my external hdd and restore an image which would wipe out the current MBR and data on the hdd. Seeing as trueimage is linux based the malware could do nothing imo.