Maker of WinRoute Pro Debuts Free Personal Firewall Kerio Technologies' PC Protector Inspects Inbound, Outbound Traffic Eric Grevstad
Mon 4/1/02 -- Always-on cable and DSL connections are like candy to a hacker's sweet tooth, and even dial-up modem users are finding themselves vulnerable to online intruders and snoopers. Kerio Technologies has been on the front lines of the online-security fight with its popular WinRoute Pro network firewall software, but is now helping to protect the home front as well with Kerio Personal Firewall 2.1 -- a PC security package that's free for home use. (Business and institutional IT managers can evaluate the firewall before licensing it for anywhere from one user -- for $39 -- to 100 or more.)
Kerio Personal Firewall uses stateful packet inspection to audit all traffic entering and leaving a PC, blocking all inbound traffic or random scans by default and letting users authorize applications as trusted (say, your Web browser and e-mail client) or prohibited from Internet access (say, spyware). Automatically generated digital signatures prevent Trojan horses from masquerading as approved programs.
Advanced users can add or edit rules manually and view all open connections from a Firewall Status screen. Kerio Personal Firewall detects, warns, and asks for user authorization if any program tries to install a kernel-level driver that might bypass rules. An auto-update feature notifies you when a new version of the firewall is available for download.
