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| Use a Firewall to Help Protect Yourself SUMMARY: Updated firewalls can help protect you from spyware and adware.
If you connect to the Internet, you should use a hardware and/or software firewall.
Period.
Firewalls can help protect your machine from spyware and adware in several ways:
1) Your machine may have a known security exploit, known to hackers, but not necessarily to you. If you do not keep your operating system and software up-to-date, a firewall can sometimes help prevent malicious people from exploiting the vulnerabilities on your machine. It does this by blocking requests to communicate with ports or requests that it deems are potentially malicious.
2) If your machine does become infected, firewalls, if configured and updated, can help prevent spyware or adware "calling home" so that advertisements are not delivered to your machine and your computer use is not monitored and recorded. Without this communication, these threats, though still annoying and potential harmful, have a slightly lessened threat of causing damage.
3) Spyware and adware, when installed, may open holes on your machine through which other threats can enter. A correctly configured and updated firewall can block many of these holes, helping to prevent other malware from infecting your computer.
If you are using Windows XP Service Pack 2, you already have a software firewall installed. Make sure it is turned on unless you are using a third-party firewall:
1. Click "Start" - "Control Panel".
2. Choose "Security Center" or "Windows Firewall", whichever is listed.
3. When the "Windows Firewall" dialog box appears, select the "General" tab.
4. Click the radio button next to "On".
5. If desired, check "Don't allow exceptions".
6. Click "OK" to close the dialog box.
You may instead want to use a third-party firewall, such as ZoneAlarm or Norton's:
Norton Personal Firewall - http://www.symantec.com/sabu/nis/npf/
ZoneAlarm - http://www.zonelabs.com/
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