How Does McAfee Personal Firewall Work?

Why let your computer stay raw and unprotected when McAfee Personal Firewall is here to help you. McAfee Personal Firewall, which was first introduced in 2005 to McAfee security suites citing the growing importance of keeping safe online, is a personal firewall designed to check and control the incoming & outgoing traffic to and from a computer and keep unauthorized users from connecting to it. The tool has improved security levels, advanced security features that stand it apart from other firewall programs, and close integration with third-party applications to make sure non-disruptive functioning in a computer.

In this post, I am going to discuss how McAfee Personal Firewall works to protect users from online attacks and intrusions that sneak in their computers without their permissions. Let me tell you first that McAfee® Personal Firewall no longer comes as a standalone program. It now comes integrated with McAfee Total Protection, Internet Security, and Virus scan Plus McAfee security suites.

How McAfee Personal Firewall works:

The firewall has 6 security levels that pose as an unbeatable security barrier between your computer and the Internet. Whatever comes in and whatever goes out using your Internet connection is monitored and controlled to provide maximum protection and blockage against unauthorized intrusion and several types of threats and infections like viruses, spyware, bots, worms, and rootkits etc.

Below are the six levels that McAfee® Personal Firewall has:

Lockdown - This feature blocks all types of connections including yours that try to connect to your computer. It's like un-plugging the network cable to completely disconnect from the Internet connection.

Stealth - This feature blocks all those connections for which you didn't configure a rule for. So if a connection, which you haven't recognized as valid will not be able to connect to your network. If you want to allow a connection, you will have to let it be recognized first by the McAfee firewall by creating a rule.

Open - This feature allows you to make connection to all connection types. This is like disabling the firewall and making your network exposed to all the connections.

Tight - This feature allows one-time access to users for an application. If you want to grant further access to other users, you will need to configure it manually.

Standard - With this feature, you can grant other users access to multiple applications. You will again have to configure it manually if you want to continue granting access.

Trusting/automatic - This feature allows you to keep up little or no action at all to allow other connections to connect to your computer.

So, waiting is not an option if you want to keep your computer and Internet connection safe. Install a McAfee security suite with McAfee® Personal Firewall today and stay protected forever.

***Remember the above mentioned security levels may differ with various McAfee® Personal Firewall versions.

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V tech-squad Inc. is the leading third-party service provider of certified online technical support services. Our Microsoft-certified technicians not only resolve virus/spyware removal issues but also educate you how to avoid your PC from future interaction with any type of worm, virus, or Trojan etc. Our top-class services include Microsoft product support, antivirus issues, malware issues, spyware issues, wireless router issues, printer issues, and non-computer devices etc.

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Securing Your Computer and Personal Accounts From Hacking Attempts

High-profile celebrities, multinational corporations, and military institutions all share one thing in common: They were all compromised before or have their accounts and networks infiltrated by computer hackers. However, never assume that hackers only aim at prominent and valuable targets. Hacking of computers and Internet accounts for personal and financial information is becoming more prevalent and more and more computer users and Web surfers are at risk of falling victim to them. News media has recently reported of increasing attempts by hackers to take control of e-mail accounts and social network webpages such as Twitter and Facebook. More and more computer users have enlisted the help of purchased or free antivirus solutions and professional advice to help them deal with hacking intrusions.

Before we continue on with this article, we will need to define clearly what "hacking" really means and what actions do it constitutes or covers. Hacking is the general term that is used to identify attempts by persons or users to make off with your e-mail records, computer system, network connections, and Internet security settings. Simply put, it is any effort by hackers and other shady individuals to use the Web or local network to intrude in your PC or laptop and steal your important information.

To the accomplished hacker or to any computer expert in general, hacking can be a relatively basic action that can be accomplished with minimum effort. With the right skill set and attitude, basically anyone can get into computer and Internet accounts illegally and pilfer away critical personal information. A computer user can be called a hacker if he or she somehow gets the e-mail account password or Facebook account name of other individuals and uses them to steal personal information. They often take advantage of the fact that many passwords can easily be guessed; many computer and Internet users sadly only use "1234" or the term "password" as their password for important personal computer and online accounts. E-mail accounts and addresses are often targeted by hackers because they are often used as access points to your confidential Internet data. Hackers can also use other more complicated means and tools to gain control of computer files and make off with critical personal data such as Trojan horses, spam, spyware, and phishing; oftentimes, they can bypass the protective screen that is provided by most paid or free antivirus applications.

There are some hacking techniques that are so complicated and difficult to understand that only professional computer users and experts are able to follow them. They are used by skilled hackers to infiltrate and compromise the computerized networks of private corporations and government institutions, despite the high level of security that are provided for them.

So you come to realize the importance of protecting your computer and accounts from hacking attempts; you now ask yourself, "How can I better secure my computer?" You can easily realize this by strengthening your Internet security against hacking attempts and malware intrusions. To do this, you should first devise solid passwords for each of your e-mail and social media accounts. Secure passwords are those that contain lengthy and apparently haphazard sets of numbers, letters and special symbols and characters such as "&" and "@." You can use the free online password checker by Microsoft at "https://www.microsoft.com/security/pc-security/password-checker.aspx" to determine whether your password is secure enough for you to use.

You can also strengthen your Internet protection by using a capable antispyware tool or utility. You can select the right antispyware program for your PC or laptop from the numerous premium antimalware solutions and free antivirus applications available. There are even those that are bundled in along with your Windows operating system. If you have Security Essentials from Microsoft and you have an earlier version of Windows installed in your computer, you will have to install an up-to-date variant of Windows or get the latest patches and updates.

Having a sensible and careful attitude when surfing the Web can also help you secure your PC or laptop better from hacking attempts and malware incursions. Never access webpages that you suspect may contain malicious programs and software and never provide your personal information to suspicious-looking or bogus Internet sites. Never click on attachments or links found in e-mailed messages that were sent by unknown individuals and entities. If you have a basic spam utility built in your e-mail, have it upgraded to its full version. Modern web browsers and search engines indicate log-in pages that they have secured by showing a padlock symbol on their address bar, alongside the Uniform Resource Locator (URL) line of that website or page. If this padlock symbol does not appear on the address bar for that site, you might do well to skip the site altogether or proceed to view it with care.

If by any chance your e-mail or social media account has been infiltrated and hacked, you should modify your account password right away and call the customer helpline. If you wish to take back control of your account, you will need to follow an account confirmation process that is provided to you by the e-mail service provider or social media website.

If you suspect that your e-mail account or Facebook page has been infiltrated and hacked, you would need to act on it right away. After you take back control of your e-mail and social media accounts, you will need to better protect your computer by using a paid or free antivirus program that can actively protect you from online hacking attempts and malware intrusions.

You can know all about the latest and the best antivirus software by clicking here.

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Firewalls: Personal Vs Network

Most people who use computers these days, which is just about everyone, have heard of firewalls. They know that they protect computers from all of the "bad stuff" that is circulating around the internet these days. However, most don't know much more than that and there are some definite areas of confusion.

Probably the most confusing thing is that there are two different types of firewalls, Personal and Network. They are similar in they both filter communication to and from computers to provide security. They differ in that a personal firewall is installed on an individual's computer to protect that computer while a network firewall is installed on a network computer or router to protect all of the computers on the network.

The way people discuss Network firewalls often creates the impression that a firewall is a type of computer hardware. Yes, you can buy computers and routers with the firewall application preinstalled, but it is still as software concept. There is no such thing as hardware only firewall.

A network needs to have a firewall at every interface point with other networks. If you have a firewall at connection points with other networks in your organization, an intranet, you make sure that any hacker and/or malware that has compromised a portion of the network will not access the rest of the network. Most important, of course is to have a firewall at connection points to the internet. The internet is a playground for hackers who are constantly coming up with new ways to compromise computers for malicious and nefarious schemes.

You might think that this is obvious to people who administer networks, but apparently not to everyone. Each year, Verizon issues the Data Breach Investigations Report (DBIR). The report is based on data provided by the US Secret Service and security agencies in the Netherlands, England and Australia

According to the DBIR 96% of breaches were not highly difficult and 97% were avoidable through simple or intermediate controls. For victims subject to the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS), 97% had not achieved compliance. The PCI DSS is intended to protect cardholder data for debit, credit, prepaid, e-purse, ATM, and Point of Sale (POS) cards.

The two most common reasons for security breaches and non PCI compliance was lack of a firewall and virus scanning. The remarkable thing about this is that there are some excellent firewall and scanning systems available for free!

It is also important that every computer on a network or connected to the internet of a personal firewall installed.

A personal firewall is similar to a network firewall in that it filters network traffic to and from a computer, but just for the computer it is installed on. It will permit or deny communications based on its settings. A personal firewall allows users to set varying levels of trust and individual security policies.

It's possible that a desktop or server computer inside a protected network may not need a personal firewall, but users are increasingly relying on mobile computers. Mobile computers especially require firewall protection because they may connect to various networks and the internet via WiFi.

Microsoft Windows comes with Firewall software installed. If you have had it turned off it displays warnings that your computer is not protected.

However, Windows 7 and Vista firewalls do not monitor outbound connections by default and not at all for Windows XP. The security settings are relatively difficult to change.

I recommend using a "third party" firewall, particularly because you can get some very good free firewalls that also provide malware scanning.

Not all scanners are the same. I prefer scanners that are very aggressive. The problem with most antivirus protection is that they only address viruses and exploits that have been identified and added to a "blacklist" of known viruses.

Not bad, except there are approximately 40,000 new viruses and system exploits unleashed EVERY DAY! They will eventually update their blacklist for a specific issue, but you are always playing catch-up.

I prefer protection that uses a "whitelist" concept and sandbox. With this technique, program files are compared to a list of valid files and only allowed to run in your system if they are on the list. If the scanner has any suspicions about a program, it is run in an isolated system area called a sandbox where the scanner can determine if it is OK or should be deleted.

Firewalls are easy to setup and there are excellent free anti-malware and firewall suites available. Whether you have a network for a business or just a home computer, you owe to yourself to implement the best available.

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