Help, Help, I'm Being Hacked!
Written: Apr 18 '00 (Updated Apr 18 '00)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: very simple to use, does not require much technical knowledge
Cons: can be oversensitive, does not monitor outbound traffic, often poorly documented, limited configurability
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| Moonvine's Full Review: Macmillan BlackICE Defender Full Version for PC |
Or are you? With this program you may never know for sure.
I started using BlackIce Defender shortly after I got a cable modem last October due to increased need for security but no longer use it as I have found there are much better choices at a comparable or lesser price.
BlackIce Defender is a personal firewall that is extremely easy (perhaps too easy) to use. It comes with four settings: paranoid, nervous, trusting, and cautious. Paranoid restricts all inbound TCP and UDP traffic; trusting permits all inbound traffic on these ports. The default is cautious, which protects standard TCP and UDP ports and should be fine for the average user. It blocks NetBios by default. You can allow internet file sharing by checking a box. You can trust or block selected IP addresses just by typing them in.
BID offers good protection against malicious inbound traffic. It displays a graphical log of attacks over the past 90 days, categorizing them as "critical" or "suspicious". When there is suspicious activity the icon in your sys tray will flash red; when you open the program it shows the type of attack and the IP and DNS address of the attacker. There is an "advice" link that will take you to the Network Ice page where you will get a description of the type of attack that is occurring and documentation on how to report the attack to the originating ISP.
So, what are the problems?
Firstly, this program is oversensitive, even on the default "cautious" setting. It often in my experience interprets perfectly normal computer handshaking as an attack, which can lead to all kinds of nasty things, including paranoid users making false reports of hacking attempts. Specifically many times when I log into an ftp site or an irc server it will report a hack attempt from the ftp site or irc server.
Secondly, expect problems often when you update Windows. On three or four occasions now I have updated Windows and it is unable to set the filters, necessitating frequent downloading of patches and rendering my computer vulnerable until the patch comes out. If you use this product do not download Windows upgrades as soon as they come out.
Thirdly, many types of hacking attempts have very poor documentation. Here is an example: "DNS Non-Internet Lookup - Possible intrusion. A DNS query includes a non-Internet address." (This is the entire help entry for this attack). Fine, but what does that really tell you?
Fourthly, there is NO outbound traffic filtering. This program operates under the assumption that all outbound traffic is innocuous, which is simply not the case - the whole point of many malicious programs is to send data out of your computer without your knowledge.
Fifth, (and heaven help us all if Bill Gates ever catches on to this idea) you only purchase this product for one year at a time. Your 39.95 entitles you to one year of upgrades/bug fixes/patches, and these are very very frequent. As mentioned earlier this product often will not function at all without the latest upgrade/patch.
BlackIce Defender is $39.95 and can be downloaded from the manufacturer's page at http://www.networkice.com/. There is a 30 day money back guarantee. They do not issue this product on CD, nor do they offer evaluation copies.
If you have an always-on internet connection (such as a cable modem) it is wise to have a personal firewall. In my opinion, this one is not the best but is still much better than nothing. If you decide to use it, make sure you keep it updated - watch for reports of hack attempts from 0.0.0.0 and a message "filter failed." This indicates that the program was unable to set the firewall filters; if this happens your machine is vulnerable to attack.
Recommended:
No
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Epinions.com ID:
Moonvine
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Location: Austin, TX
Reviews written: 116
Trusted by: 119 members
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