What kind of protection does a router with spi firewall provide?

1) There doesnt seem to be a page where I can see what other pcs are on the network. Im not really a fan of of pctools. Its light but it doesnt seem that user-friendly. What other software firewalls have spi and boot protection. OA free? Outpost free? Comodo? Any other suggestions?

2) So which do you suggest DW or AppGuard? I assume DW EDIT: If AG doesnt protect against direct disk access then is it vulnerable to the safesys worm and similar disk killers?

3) Alright thanks. I'm also thinking of running sbie in addition with DW. EDIT: Any comments or suggestions on this?

 

Alright Seer, thanks for your input. If it wasnt for your participation, I would have assumed my router had spi protection, or indeed any other router with a hardware firewall.

As for pctools I think Kees might know if it has proper spi protection, as I think he participated in developing v4 which had those functions as well.

Out of curiosity what software firewall do you use?

 

Be careful with PC Tools Firewall Plus 5.x can hang the system on certain applications where you need to reboot. To fix that problem you need to disable Enhanced Security thus limiting some of the features. Only PC tools Firewall Plus 3.14 works with all applications and thus didn't have this issue.

 

Thanks for that Tipstir, but I already have ESV disabled since i have DW for my HIPS needs.

 

I am using L'n'S atm. Didn't quite get a full hang of it yet, but the good thing with it is that with this granularity of rule editing, you don't really have to care about SPI.

Cheers,

 

Cool. Perhaps I should check out LnS, iirc there are user-made rulesets right? Are these sufficient for the average user?

 

See above

 

Kees,

Thanks for your response. I am thinking of going 64bit when windows 7 comes out. As such Im looking for a policy management app that will also be available in 64bits. I think Ilya has stated there will be no 64bit DW as such will appguard be going 64bits? Will it work well with sbie? Thanks.