Securing your home network’s Internet connection

By Ed Tittel

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You have a home network, and you want to get at least two of those PCs up and running on the Internet. Don’t take any chances with security; one breach and you risk infecting all the computers in the network.

Those with home networks should know that service providers (cable companies for cable service, and phone companies for DSL service) are happy to lease (and occasionally sell) “customer premises equipment” that includes security and/or networking components (wired, wireless or both). That usually means a combination of the following functions, all of which the service provider will maintain on your behalf:

• Internet Link: the cable or DSL modem that permits traffic to enter the service provider’s network from your network or PC, and vice-versa. The device makes the connection to the provider’s network, which in turn gets you to the Internet.

• Firewall: a screening device that inspects all traffic inbound onto your network and blocks unwanted or unauthorized access attempts, and that also makes your network and PCs as undetectable to the outside world as possible. Modern firewalls offer complex-screening services based on network domains, addresses, protocols and services, and they may be configured to fend off many common forms of network attack

.• Switch: a device that permits you to attach anywhere from four to eight individual PCs to a local network. See the article that talks about the difference between modems and routers here for more information.

• DHCP Server: a special network service that provides the PCs on your network with the address and addressing information they need to use the network, and to access the Internet.

• NAT Server: a special network service that translates from private addresses you use on your network to public addresses needed to access the Internet, and vice versa.

Following is a checklist of those items, and their relative importance when securing your own network. See the status column to indicate which items are mandatory, which ones are optional but inconvenient to do without, and which ones are purely optional when other alternatives may exist (you could, for example, get managed firewall services from your service provider, and buy your own network switch to save on monthly fees).

Table 1: Internet link checklist

Households with only a single PC to protect may decide to omit the checklist, but should make regular use of the Security Scan recommended in “Digital home security checklist” to  continually satisfy themselves that their PC is secure and as invisible as possible. Likewise, households with a network may decide they don’t need some of the checklist items that appear above.

For information on securing a wireless network, see “Wireless security and the home PC.”