A VPN would work well for keeping her traffic safe but if her laptop
wasn't safe then the VPN would be moot. I think using a VPN is
complicating the situation beyond what the user maybe was looking for.
The two places to secure would be the end node and the traffic in
between. The traffic could be secured by a VPN, but that would still
leave the end node vulnerable to attack. I think with the amount of
threats currently in the wild, browsing the internet without a personal
firewall can be a dangerous venture.
If she's looking for the most secure approach I would say a personal
firewall and a VPN connection to a trusted source. If she is just
looking for machine security I think a personal firewall would be
plenty. I would steer towards a firewall with good reviews that looks
at more than just ports, like IE requests and such. If she used SSL
sites anytime she was divulging personal information her traffic would
be encrypted and there wouldn't really be a need for a VPN.
Andy Kitzke
Network Engineer
In-Sink-Erator
-----Original Message-----
From: James Harless [mailto:jharless@kidwellcompanies.com]
Sent: Wednesday, April 19, 2006 8:53 AM
To: focus-ms@securityfocus.com
Subject: Re: Internet security on "hotspots"
Have her connect to a VPN that is available to her. If her company
doesn't
have one available, there are many easy to implement solutions for
setting
up a PPTP VPN. Then, she can connect to an insecure Wireless AP but,
all of
her traffic would flow encrypted to the VPN and out to the 'net from
that
remote location.
--
James Harless
Network Security Engineer
Kidwell Companies
kCOM kE kTECH
900 S. 26th Street
Lincoln, NE 68510
13336 Industrial Road
Suite 101
Omaha, NE 68137
Main: 402-475-9151
Fax: 402-475-9186
jharless@kidwellcompanies.com
www.kidwellcompanies.com <http://www.kidwellcompanies.com/>
On 4/18/06 9:09 PM, "Agent Zr0" <agentzr0@necrotek.net> wrote:
I have a friend who is interested in better securing her laptop while
she's out surfing the net at coffeehouses and what not. I'm thinking
of
telling her to just get herself a REALLY good firewall program (I use
zonealarm pro myself), but I was wondering if anyone here had any
other
ideals or thoughts that I could pass onto her other than that.
Agent Zer0
agentzr0@necrotek.net
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