Ethical Hacking

hello everyone my name is vijay kumar Devireddy and i am glad to have you back on my episode 22 today we are discussing about SIM cloning and ID theft.If you've gone and bought a new cell phone recently,you've gone to the store, they've pulled out a little chip our of your phone and placed it into your new phone.What is that chip? Well, that's a SIM card.It's stands for subscriber identity module.This is an integrated circuit that securely stores the international mobile subscriber identity, your IMSI number,and its related key.This is what tels the cellphone towers which device is assigned to which number.Now, if someone is able to clone your SIM card,they can pretend they're you.This was very popular in the early days of cellphones because if I could pretend that I was you,I could rack up lots of long distance calls and lots of minutes used on cellular and not get charged for them.Because you would get charged for them.And so people would go through and impersonate you and they would do this by cloning your SIM card.Now SIM cloning allows two cellphones to utilize the same service.And allows the attacker to gain access to the phone's personal data.So if I'm cloning your SIM card the towers think I'm you.So if somebody sends you a text message,I get a copy and you get a copy.And so now I'm able to keep track of what you're getting.Now this is very dangerous for you.The good news is that SIM has changed its ways over the years.The first versions of SIM cards were very easy to clone,but the newer SIM version 2 cards are much, much harder.So this gives us a lot more security.Now, one of the second problems we have with mobile phones and SIM cards and phone numbers is when people try to take over your phone.And so you may think, all right, great,SIM card cloning is almost a thing of the past,version 2 has taken care of it.Well, attackers are smart and they find other ways to hijack your cellphone account.What they started doing now, is they will call up your cellphone provider and pretend to be you.This is a social engineering scheme.They'll say, I just bought a new phone and I need to get it activated.And the nice customer service agent will ask them some basic questions about themselves,like maybe their date of birth,where they went to high school, their name and address,things that you can usually find online.So the attacker pretends to be you and gives that information.The customer service agent is wonderfully helpful,and they transfer your phone service from you to the attacker.Now the attacker has a phone and a new SIM card that is now attached to your number.Why are they doing this?Why do they want your phone number?Well, it comes down to two-step authentication.A lot of websites now are using two-factor authentication where you long in and they send you a text message with a secret code that you then put into the website to verify that you are who you say you are.If the attacker is able to take over your phone number,they can now pretend to be you and long into your bank, your Facebook, your Gmail,or whatever else you have for two-factor authentication.This is becoming a big problem.And so you have to be careful where you post your phone number.Because if somebody now has your phone number,and they've already stolen your account,your email, and maybe your password,they can now take over your phone number and then take over your accounts.So this is what we call ID theft, or account takeover.So, how do we combat this?Well, one of the ways is to be careful where your post your phone number.Because if you are a victim of a data breach,and somebody has stolen your name and your address and your email,and now they have your phone number,they can preform this account takeover against you.

hello everyone my name is vijay kumar Devireddy and i am glad to have you back on my episode 21 today we are discussing about These days we work all over the place.We're not just stuck in our cubicles behind a computer.Instead we can be working no matter where we are.When I'm sitting in the line at the grocery store,I can be checking my email and answering student questions.If I'm sitting on an airplane,I can be texting to my friend while I'm at 35,000 feet. Mobile devices are great and they give us a lot of capability and a lot of connectivity but we also store a lot of personal information in these.We do our banking, our email,our pictures, even our online shopping,all from the palm of our hand and while that's all wonderful and it's great,we have to consider the fact that there is mobile malware out there.These devices are not immune to it and so, how are we going to protect ourself against these mobile variants?Well, the first thing we want to do is ensure that we have an antivirus solution on our devices.There are third-party products out there for both iPhones and Android devices that will allow you to have an anti-malware or antivirus solution on your phone.It will scan any attachments you have that are in your email,as well as check the device to ensure it's running properly.In addition to that, one of the biggest things you can do is always ensure your mobile device is patched and updated.That's right, just like your operating system on your computer, you need to ensure your phone is patched and updated.So, if you're one of those people that always hits Remind Me Later, don't do that because what happens is if there is a patch out there,that means that attackers have already been able to reverse engineer it and they know what the vulnerability is.If there's a patch, there's also an exploit,so always patch your devices and ensure your applications are updated.Now, if you're talking about your operating system,how do you update an operating system on your phone?Well, if you're using an iPhone,it's fairly easy.Apple will actually push a notification to you and say the latest version of iOS is out,click here to update or it'll ask if you want to do it in the middle of the night because that way,it doesn't take away valuable time that you're using it.Either way, you want to make sure you're updating your device so that you always have the latest operating system.Now, when we talk about Android,it's a little bit more complicated. Google puts out the base operating system and when there's a vulnerability found,they create the patches for it and then they pass it out to the different manufacturers.The problem is most people aren't running a Google-based Android device.Instead you may have a Samsung device or a Huawei device or an HTC.And each of these manufacturers has taken that base code and modified it in some way.So, usually you have to get your operating system update from your manufacturer, so if Google founds out there's a bug today and they release a patch tomorrow,it could be two, three, four months before Motorola or HTC pushes that patch out to your Android device. For this reason, Apple is a little bit more secure if you keep it updated because they do have a quicker patch and release cycle since they only have to support their own handsetsand not a bunch of other manufacturers.When we look at that, we also to consider our applications. ThankYou....

hello everyone my name is vijay kumar Devireddy and i am glad to have you back on my episode 20 today we are discussing about We all use wireless devices these days.Whether it's your laptop, your tablet, or your smartphone,all of these have the ability to communicate wirelessly.How can we best secure these devices?Well, there's two main things we have to think about when we talk about wireless with these devices:wifi and Bluetooth.First, wifi, is there internet connectivity? If we're using wifi, we want to make sure the wifi is set to be protected at the highest levels.Currently, that's WPA2, or Wifi Protected Access Version Two.This relies on the advanced encryption standard for its encryption algorithm, also known as AES.In addition to securing our wifi, we also have to consider the peripherals that connect to these devices.For example, if you have a smartphone and it connects to a Bluetooth to your car,how is that link being secured?Well, by default, Bluetooth requires you to pair the device and when you pair the device, the two devices will communicate via that shared link in giving each other a shared link key.They use that key to encrypt their data.Unfortunately, some of these devices use weaker encryption than others, so if you're really worried about your confidentiality, you should always try to avoid wireless devices when possible.If you have to use a wireless device like headphones or connecting to your car, you should look at the manufacturer specifications to determine what type of encryption is being used and if they're not using AES with a strong key, you might want to pass on using that device and buy a replacement.

hello everyone my name is vijay kumar Devireddy and i am glad to have you back on my episode 19 today we are discussing about Disk encryption, encryption is a process that scrambles data into unreadable information.It does this to ensure that nobody can read it,except the person who holds the secret key.This ensures confidentiality.If you have the key you can unlock that randomized data and translate it back into something readable.Think about it like a magic machine.The information goes in one side,and out the other side comes a jumbled mess.Without that key you don't know how to read the jumbled mess.Another example of this is actually language.I'm speaking English right now.If I spoke English into my machine and out the other side came Spanish,and you didn't understand Spanish,it would be encrypted, and you wouldn't understand it.But if you knew the key,meaning you understood Spanish,you could understand everything that was being said.There are two different types of encryption,hardware-based and software-based.The first one we're going to talk about is hardware-based encryption.A great example of this is a self-encrypting drive.It looks like an external hard drive,and it has embedded hardware that performs full disk, or whole disk encryption.These are very fast, unfortunately,they're also very expensive, so they're not commonly used.Instead, most people use software-based encryption in the marketplace and in our organizations. Luckily for us, there are two forms of whole disk encryption already embedded into our operating systems if we're using Mac or Windows.In a Mac we have a system called FileVault where we can turn on whole disk encryption with a single click.This is located under your system preferences and under the security tab.On Windows we use a system called BitLocker.BitLocker, again, is very easy to turn on.If I want to encrypt my D drive I simply right-click it,turn on BitLocker, and then I'll be able to encrypt the entire drive with a single click.As I said previously, encryption requires a key.And when you're using BitLocker specifically you're actually going to be using a hardware key that resides on your motherboard.It's called the Trusted Platform Module, or TPM.This TPM chip resides on the motherboard,and it contains the encryption key inside of it.This is what BitLocker is going to use to encrypt your drive.So if you're going to take that hard drive out and put it into another system you have to decrypt that drive first,otherwise you're not going to be able to decrypt it on the other system because it has a different TPM module and different secret key.If your motherboard doesn't have TPM you still can use BitLocker, but instead you have to use an external USB drive as a key.It'll store the key on that USB drive.But if you use that USB drive you're never going to be able to unlock that hard drive again.Because every time you boot up that computer you have to make sure you have that USB key inserted so it can unlock the drive.Both BitLocker and FileVault use the same type of encryption. They use Advanced Encryption Standard, also known as AES.AES is a symmetric key encryption that supports 128-bit and 256-bit keys, and is considered unbreakable as of the time of this recording.Encryption sounds like a wonderful thing, and it is.It secures our data and keeps prying eyes out.It secures our data and keeps prying eyes out.But it does have some drawbacks.Encryption adds additional security for us,but it comes with a lower performance for your system.If I'm doing whole disk encryption that means before I can even boot up the computer and read things from that drive I have to decrypt it,and that takes time and processing.So you have to remember there is a sacrifice in speed and performance when you're using full disk encryption.Because of this performance hit some people decide not to use full disk encryption.

hello everyone my name is vijay kumar Devireddy and i am glad to have you back on my episode 18 today we are discussing about Securing the storage Devices There are a lot of ways to store data in your network and on your computers.In addition to your internal hard drive,most computers have the ability to use removable media as well.Removable media comes in many different formats.In the old days, we had our simple floppy disks.Then we moved up to CDs and then DVDs and those held a lot more information.Next, we had external hard drives that plug in through USB.And finally, we had USB thumb sticks which are very small but hold a ton of information.When you're placing your information onto one of these removable media formats or external devices,you have to make sure that it stays safe from prying eyes.We want to ensure confidentiality.To do this, we always want to encrypt our files.You can do this in one of two ways.On Windows 10, you can use BitLocker To Go which will allow you to encrypt files using a software encryption.Also, you could buy a USB thumb stick that already has hardware encryption built-in,something like an IronKey USB shown here.Some organizations are a little more paranoid though and they want to ensure that nothing gets out of their organization.And they also want to make sure that nothing gets into their organization.To do that, they've implemented removable media controls.These controls are technical limitations that are placed on a system in regards to the way the USB storage devices and other media can be accessed. For example, this can be done using technical controls inside your group policies by denying read access from USB drives or denying write access to a CD or DVD.In addition to these technical controls, you also need to consider which administrative controls such as policies you want to create and guide those technical controls that are going to be used inside your organization.In addition to external devices and removable media,we also can store our data on our networks and we might do something called a NAS.If we use a NAS, that's a Network Attached Storage device.These storage devices connect directly into your organization's network.They often look like a big rack of hard drives with a network cable coming out of the back of them.Most of the time,NAS systems are going to implement some form of a RAID array that gives you high availability.Because these devices need to be accessed at all times because they're acting as file servers for your organization,this high availability is important.Oftentimes, we'll take different NAS'and we'll connect them together into what's known as a Storage Area Network or a SAN.A SAN is a network designed specifically to perform block storage functions and it may consist of many NAS devices connected together.Now if you're using a single NAS device in your organization or at your home,there are three tips I want to give you to make sure that you secure it properly.First, always use data encryption.If your NAS supports full disk data encryption,you should turn it on and implement it.Second, you should always use proper authentication.These things are acting as file servers.You want to make sure that it asks for credentials such as a username and password and that is individualized to each user so no one is sharing access across the organization.The third thing is to make sure you're logging access to your NAS device.This way if something goes wrong,you can go back and figure out who was the last person who accessed the NAS?Who downloaded those hundred terabytes worth of files?And what may have gone wrong?These are important things to know and without logs,you won't be able to figure it out. And Thankyou bye-bye.....

hello everyone my name is vijay kumar Devireddy and i am glad to have you back on my episode 17 today we are discussing about Securing the BIOS.What is the BIOS?Well, if you remember back to your CompTIA A plus studies,BIOS is a type of firmware which is software on a chip.The BIOS stands for the basic input output system..It's firmware that provides the computer's instructions for how it's going to accept input and send output.So anytime the motherboard is going to talk to a keyboard,a mouse, a network card, a hard drive,a video card, whatever it is,it has to have instructions on how to do that.That's what the BIOS provides.Now, most modern computers don't have a traditional or legacy BIOS anymore.Instead, they use a U-E-F-I, or UEFI,known as the Unified Extensible Firmware Interface,but it's essentially the same thing.It's just more of an updated and robust version of it.Throughout this lesson I'm going to refer to both of these as BIOS collectively instead of one or the other because for our purposes they're equivalent.Now, when your computer boots up, it loads the BIOS,and the BIOS tells it how it'sgoing to check the hard driveand figure out what the boot order is.Should it boot from the hard drive,the floppy disk, the CD,or the USB drive first?The BIOS controls that.Then, it's going to load the machine.Once it does that, it loads the operating system.And then, Windows is going to start taking over and be able to do a lot of the functions for the BIOS.The BIOS is very low level.As such, it only deals with very basic tasks.Once the operating system has loaded,it gives you a ton of additional capability to your computer.Now, how are we going to secure this computer?Well, when we're talking about securing the BIOS,we're talking about securing everything up to the point when Windows is loaded.The first thing we want to do is what's called flashing the BIOS.Flashing the BIOS is simply ensuring that it has the most up to date software on that chip.Because it's firmware, you have to do a process called flashing the BIOS to upgrade the BIOS.This allows you to remove what's currently on the chip and replace it with a newer, more updated version.Any time there's going to be a new update to the BIOS,the manufacturer releases it on their website.Generally, they'll give you a process that you can install it to a thumb drive,boot from that thumb drive,and then run a program to flash the BIOS.The next thing we want to do to help secure the BIOS is ensuring that you've set a BIOS password.This'll prevent anyone from being able to log into the BIOS and change the boot order or other settings without having this administrative password.You want to make sure that you're using a good long and strong password,just like you would for your Windows machine.But it should be one that's unique to your BIOS and not the same as your Windows machine.Next, you want to configure your BIOS's boot order.As you can see here on the screen,I've deselected the disk drive,the CD drive, and the USB drive.I only want to be able to boot from the internal hard disk and then from the network card.This helps me protect somebody from putting in a bootable distribution of a Linux CD or something like that and taking control of my computer.f I control the boot order,I control what's loaded.The fourth thing you can do to help secure your BIOS is disable any external ports and devices that you're not going to need.For example, do you still use a parallel port?Most people don't, and so you should disable it.The same thing happens with a serial port.No one really uses them anymore.We use USB, so you can disable it.You might have an onboard network card that you don't use.

hello everyone my name is vijay kumar Devireddy and i am glad to have you back on my episode 16 today we are discussing about Data loss prevention.Data loss prevention is set up to monitor the data of a system while it's in use,in transit, or at rest.It does this, in order to detect any attempts to steal the data.Let's think about when we had data stored,20 or 30 years ago.Where did they store most of it?Well, most businesses stored it printed off,and in a filing cabinet.And if somebody wanted to get it,they'd have to break into your offices,open the filing cabinet, and physically take the files.This limited the amount of information that somebody could steal from you,because they really could only steal,what they could carry with them.Then, we started allowing people to work remotely,and a lot of data was stored on laptops.If you happened to stop for lunch and you left your laptop sitting in your car,somebody could've broken in your car,and stolen your laptop.And they now have access to all the data that was on it.The next evolution in data theft occurred when we started using external hard drives.These started being used,all throughout our offices.These hard drives could hold large amounts of data.We could plug it into the network, through our laptop,and download a ton of information and data,and then walk out of the building with it.But, these were kind of large and easy to detect.Next, we started seeing thumb drives,that hold just as much as  these external hard drives,carrying billions of documents out the front door with no one knowing it,because they're so small,and fit right in your pocket.But wait, we don't even need to do that nowadays,because we have things like Dropbox and Google Drive,where we get terabytes of storage available to you,hooked up to the network.And I could sit there and upload everything your company has,and get access to it,anywhere in the world.This is a huge problem for businesses,because our data and our intellectual property is what the currency of business is these days.To protect it, we have to use data loss prevention systems.These systems come as either software or hardware solutions.The first data loss prevention system we're going to talk about is an endpoint DLP system.An endpoint system, is usually a piece of software that's installed on a workstation or a laptop,and it's going to monitor the data that's in use on that computer.And if someone tries to do a file transfer,it'll either stop that file transfer,or it'll alert the admin of the occurrence based on certain rules and policies.Very much liked an IDS or an IPS would, but focused on data.DLPs can be set to detection mode, or prevention mode.The next one we have,is a network DLP system.This is a piece of software or hardware,that's a solution placed at the perimeter of your network.It's sole function in life,is to check all of the data going into,and out of your network,with a special focus on things going out of the network.They want to detect data in transit,that shouldn't be leaving the building.The third type we have,is called storage DLP.This is a software that's installed on a server in the data center and inspects the data while its at rest, on the server.This is usually because they've encrypted it or watermarked it,and we want to make sure that nobody's accessing the data at times that they shouldn't be.For example, if someone starts downloading large amounts of data at two in the morning,that's probably against your policy,and the DLP could catch it.The fourth type of DLP, is a cloud-based DLP system.These systems are usually offered as software, as a service,and it's part of your cloud service and storage needs.

hello everyone my name is vijay kumar Devireddy and i am glad to have you back on my episode 15 today we are discussing about If you're like most people,at some point during your internet surfing,you've come across and window that has a pop-up jump up in front of your browser.Usually, this is something trying to grab your attention like an ad or something else that they want you to click on.Now, while this is annoying,it can also be dangerous to your machine.And we're going to talk about that in this lesson.First, let me mention that you can block a lot of these pop-ups.For example, in Google Chrome,if you go under Settings,there's a pop-up and redirect blocker that you can enable.While most web-browsers have started having the ability to block JavaScript created pop-ups,advertisers are constantly finding new ways of creating pop-ups using Flash and other technologies.Also, if you block pop-up windows,you may run into a problem because some legitimate websites need it as a way for their website to function.For example, I used to teach at a University that their payroll system used these pop-ups and they had to be enabled.If you didn't have them enabled,you couldn't see you paycheck stub.And that way, you couldn't see how much you were earning.So, while you had to enable pop-ups for certain websites,you probably shouldn't enable it for all websites.Now, another concern with these pop-up ads is that a lot of times, they're being done through ad distribution networks.And these are based on a pay per click model.Malicious attackers can purchase pay per click advertisements through these networks as well.And sometimes, they can embed either a link to their website or a link to malicious code.This can be a really big problem for us.And so, a lot of people have gone through and started blocking the ads completely.You can do this using something like Adblock.Adblock will go through the code as it's being delivered from the website server and go into your web browser and remove all of the advertisements.Unfortunately, there's a problem with using Adblock too.And that's that some websites you want to go to may not serve up content if you're blocking advertisements.A lot of websites are working under a free model and their advertiser supported.So, if you're blocking the ads,they're not making any money giving you content.And so a lot of them have coded it so they won't deliver the content you're looking for unless you turn off your Adblocker.Another thing you can do is use a content filter.Now, content filters will block external file types like JavaScript, images, or even web pages from loading in a browser.You might be familiar with content filters from your work environment.If you go to school or you go to work,they usually have content filters on their network.This prevents you from accessing certain types of websites that they deem inappropriate.This might be things like gambling or pornography or other types of websites that they feel are inappropriate or a waste of time in the workplace.These all get blocked by a content filter.So, in summary, there's a lot of issues when you start dealing with advertisements and pop-ups.Unfortunately, there's no single solution to this problem because if you block the ads or you block the pop-ups,you may not be able to use the function of the website you're desiring.The best defense against unscrupulous advertisers though,is to also ensure your browser and its extensions are updated regularly.This will be the best protection for you.You should then also disable pop-ups when possible and specifically allow only the sites you need and if it doesn't affect your web browsing ability,you might want to disable your advertisements as well using an Adblocker and thankyou...

hello everyone my name is vijay kumar Devireddy and i am glad to have you back on my episode 14 today we are discussing about  What is an IDS?Well, an IDS stands for the Intrusion Detection System.This is a device or a piece of software that's installed on a system or a network,and it will analyze all of the data that passes through it.It does this so that it can try to identify any incidents or attacks.Intrusion Detection Systems come in two different varieties,the host-based Intrusion Detection System and the network-based Intrusion Detection System.The first one we're going to talk about is a host-based Intrusion Detection System,also called an H-I-D-S.This usually takes the form as a piece of software that's installed on your computer or on a server and it will protect it.Now, the host-based Intrusion Detection System will sit there and log everything that it thinks is suspicious.We'll talk about what might be suspicious in just a moment.The second type is what's known as a network-based Intrusion Detection System,or a NIDS, N-I-D-S.This is a piece of hardware that's installed on your network.And all the traffic goes through that switch,and then it will get a copy of that sent down to the Network Intrusion Detection System.If it's suspicious, it'll log it and it'll alert on it.Now, how do we know what these systems will alert on?Well, they're going to use one of three different methods.They're either going to use signature-based,policy-based, or anomaly-based detection.Signature-based detection is where the system is looking for a specific string of bytes that'll trigger the alert.This works like any other signature-based product.This computer is going to continually search over and over for a known specific key.And any time it sees that combination of letters or bytes,it knows that it's malicious.It'll flag it and it will alert on it.The next type is what's known as policy-based detection.This is going to rely on a specific declaration of the security policy.For example, if your company has a policy that no one is allowed to use Telnet,any time this system sees somebody trying to connect on port 23, which is the port for Telnet,it's going to flag it,log it, and alert on it The third type is statistical anomaly-based detection. Often, this is referred to as just anomaly-based detection or statistical-based detection.This is going to analyze all of the current traffic patterns against an established baseline,and anytime it sees something that goes outside the statistical norm,it's going to alert on it.So if I've been watching your network for a while and I know what normal looks like,and everybody always works from nine in the morning until five in the afternoon,and now I start seeing somebody downloading large amounts of data around two o'clock in the morning,that's outside our normal baseline and we would flag that and alert on that.Now, speaking of alerts,let's talk about what these alerts me There are four different types of alerts.They're either true positive, true negative,false positive, or false negative.Now, a true positive means something bad happened and the system flagged it and alerted on it.That's good because it means our system is tuned properly.A true negative means something good or normal happened and the system didn't flag it.Again, that's good,because our system's working like it should.But when we get into something like false positives,this is where some legitimate activity is being as identified as an attack.For example, if you log on the computer and you start up Microsoft Word, that's authorized.But if the system thought that was malicious and flagged it and alerted on it,that's considered a false positive.Now, next we have what's called a false negative.This is when something bad happens but it's identified as legitimate activity.In other words, it isn't flagged and it wasn't alerted on.

hello everyone my name is vijay kumar Devireddy and i am glad to have you back on my episode 13 today we are discussing about firewalls and we will be talking about them from a network perspective where they were dedicated pieces of hardware that sat at the edge of your network and controlled what went in and what went out. we're going to talk about personal firewalls.These are software based applications that protect just a single computer or server from unwanted internet traffic.Now these are also referred to as host-based firewalls.These firewalls work by applying a set of rules and policies against traffic that's attempting to come into or go out of our protected computer.For example, if there's a computer that's a web server then it should be accepting incoming traffic on port 80 and port 443 but if it's a desktop computer there's likely no need for these ports to be left open.Instead, the firewall should reject any inbound attempts to access these ports.Because we're talking about software based firewalls we also have to consider what operating systems are being used whether it' Windows, Mac OSX or Linux.With Windows we have the windows firewall.With OSX with have PF and IPFW firewalls.And with we Linux we have iptables.First, let's discuss Windows.In every version of Windows, there's its own software based firewall already built in and available.There's usually two types included.One is a basic version that's found within your control panel and then there's a more advanced version called the Windows firewall with advanced security.This advanced firewall can accessed by typing WF.MCS at the command prompt.The basic firewall is useful for most home users,while the more advanced version is well suited for businesses and systems where more in-depth configurations of you inbound and outbound traffic is required.Next, we have Apple's operating system, the OSX,which has a built in software firewall for Mac users.A basic version of the firewall is accessed through the system preference panel under the security and privacy panel.In addition to the graphic user interface based firewall there's also a command line version. This version is called PF for packet filter.It's available is OSX 10.10 and higher operating systems.Packet filter is the name because it's essentially what a firewall is designed to do.It filters packets.In older versions of OSX there was a different command line firewall used called IPFW, which stood for internet protocol fire wall,but that program was replaced by PF for most modern versions of the OSX operating system.Both PF and IPFW are also used in the free BSD operating system,which is what OSX is actually based on.Just like Windows and OSX, Linux has its own built in firewall too.In Linux systems, this program is called iptables and can be configured from the command line using different accept and reject rules based upon the type of network traffic that's expected and the port being utilized for that communication.Besides these built in firewalls for each of these operating systems many anti-malware suites also have their own software firewalls included too.For example, if you're using Windows,you may have a firewall from Symantec, Mcafee,or Zonealarm.Software firewalls, like all software,does need to be updated though.All software is vulnerable to attack and therefore you need to ensure your host-based firewalls are regularly updated with service packs and software updates to ensure that they remain safe and secure.Some users don't like using host-based firewalls though because they do end up using some of your computer's processing power.This has to happen so that it can check all of that network traffic against each of the rules and policies that it's been assigned,Because of this some organizations instead like to rely on dedicated hardware and network based firewalls as their first line of defense.