Is it safe to disable firewall

[Lord_of_tw]

is it safe to disable ur firewall if u want to host game's on MP?

can anyone get ur IP address through gamespy or tw game lobby or try to hack u when the game is running?

ive got broadband and its a shame i can't host as i don't know if its safe to do so when playing tw (disabling firewall)
i realize that someone would need my ip address, thats why im asking if another gamer could get it through gamespy

all feedback welcome
thx
ps is there anyway to know which person is playing which game cos i hear others r in the same lobby as me but r playing the add-on (vi) and can't join me or anyone else who's not using the add-on.

[komninos]

Sorry to say this but no matter what you do have the firewall up and running at all times. Since you are on broadband have a good fire wall like BlackIce or ZoneAlarm Pro.

Just the hard facts:
From Honeypot project - if I recall them correctly
For a Win98 un-patched machine
* First scan after 5 min on the net
* First security birch detected after 15min

In many cases multiple security breaches happened usually one erasing the other
Most of them from worm infected machines

also read this on worm war (http://project.honeynet.org/papers/worm/)
refer to the project honeynet (http://project.honeynet.org/)

[Cazbol]

Have you tried hosting a game with the firewall on? I tried it with mine it the game was visible to others.

[Gregoshi]

http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif Hello Lord_of_tw. Welcome aboard

Most firewalls allow you to specify which applications have access to the internet.

Does anyone know if there are still issues with hosting if your firewall allows access?

Edit: D'oh I see Cazbol already answered my question.

[LOTR-Helper]

I am an IT professional and run a computer department.
No never disable a firewall while you are online, especially with anything faster than a telephone modem.

Use a real harware firewall if you possibly can These can be purchased for $40-50. Most of the 4- or 8- port home networking hubs have firewalls built-in (linksys, smc, 3com, etc). As well, they have something called NAT. NAT will protect you from many hacks. Unfortunately NAT may impede **some** gaming, especially if you host. The newer hubs allow you to fix this by pushing all traffic through the NAT to your machine's IP. You have to research specs to be sure I do much business with http://www.newegg.com, a very legit online dealer. If you are in the US, great prices and often include free Fedex 2-day shipping.

Secondly, If your machine is fast, and you can afford a small performance hit, install Tiny Firewall and Tiny Trojan trap (if you are experienced or like to spend time playing with software) but you may have to search around for these. http://www.tinysoftware.com

OR with a bigger performance hit, Sygate Personal edition is FREE at http://www.sygate.com (if you want a very professional solution, but don't want complete control over the settings) you have to be careful not to the the PRO version since it requires a registration and $$$.

Stay away from Norton or McCafee firewall and Suite products they will affect preformance and they are just not as good firewalls. AS well, Zone alarm and BlackICE are not up to the level of the programs that I recommend, mine are completely FREE.
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Running these applications and hardware will allow you to be VERY safe. You can configure them to allow certain applications to run through ports and lock out everything else.

[Lord_of_tw]

hi

thx for the infomation, i'm still not sure i use keriopersonnal firewall, its fine for browsing and i've manged to set it up so i can play mtw with my firewall at its top setting, as it wouldnt let me get on to MP unless i created a ok list for udp out\in and tcp.

ive got anti-virus and trojan programs running, so i can rout out any virus\trojan before i shut my machine down,
my main worry was, someone hacking me as i'm online (if i'm hosting) is gamespy sucure???

ive been reading about sub7's and such but as i'm using trojan\virus software they shouldnt be a problem im i right???

i would like to host game's as its 1mb broadband BUT i'm hoping to find out things about tw hosting before i do anything, as there's no point having this service if i can't use it safely.
thx for links and comments guys http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

[Puzz3D]

I run win98se with a virus scanner but without a firewall over broadband, and haven't gotten a virus in two years. Prior to that I did get a network worm when I was still using dial-up because I accidentally left file sharing turned on and I wasn't running a virus scanner at that time, so, it damaged a lot of exe files before I realized I had it. What I do get is a lot of adware, and have to clean that out periodially. I guess if you are running winXP or win2000 you have to be more careful since new viruses are more likely to target those operating systems.

GameSpy is not a secure site, and you can very easily see the ip address of everyone in the foyer. Your ip address has to be visible in order for you to host a game of mtw/vi. Your best protection is to maintain an up-to-date backup of your disk drive, and keep copies of really important data on a removable media device that is write protected. I suppose if someone wanted to kill this game online they could repeatedly hack the players who normally host until those players gave up hosting.

Players using mtw do not see vi games, and players using vi do not see mtw games.

[Kraellin]

i agree with yuuki. win98 is fairly safe to use without a firewall. just make sure all file and printer sharing is turned off. win xp is the one that is mostly targetted because of the severe vulnerabilities extant in that system. even doing the windows upgrades isnt enough there. there are other things you can do, however, like dconbobulator and anti-virus and anti-adware and anti-spyware and win patrol (which detects all installed programs and does a double check with you to make sure that's something you want on your machine.

also, most viruses come through email as attachments and are not active until you open them. the recent ones that attacked win xp were nasty because they didnt need to be opened; they were done through open, vulnerable ports in the dcon system. and that's what dconbobulator does, it closes the entire system, for the most part.

also, just as a clarification, zone alarm is a very good firewall and does have a free version for download. it's what i use and can be configured so that you can host on gamespy. i currently leave it on when playing railroad tycoon iii and i can host games with it running. so, there's no real reason to even turn yours off if you get it configured correctly. log into gamespy and go to their support pages where you shld be able to find a section on the settings they require. once you've got it set up right, there's no need to turn it off and you can still host.

K.

[ToranagaSama]

Lord_of_tw,

If you're wondering what *may* be happening with your firewall down while playing games, then take a look at your logs.

I don't know your software, but any good firewall will log *intrustion* attempts. It will do it automatically or may have to set it up to do so. If its not set up to log, then do so, and review the activity over a 24 hour period. You will probably find it enlightning. You *may* have to instruct the software to log *all* attempts.

The thing to comprehend is that there are people out there who don't need a *specific* IP address. There are programs that can be instructed to *ping* a range of addresses searching for ANY open and vunerable system. Some of these programs are rather crude and simplistic, others are quite sophisticated.

Someone is probably banging on your and everyone's firewall All Day Every Day. BlackIce is about the best at logging and *presenting* such info to the user, but, I think all firewalls log. Many people use it just for this purpose simultaneously with a more standard firewall.

Set your software to log every *attempt*, as its probably set to only log attempts which caused the firewall to take action of some sort. Most attempts are like knocking at a car door. As long as one doesn't knock to hard the alarm won't go off and a log won't be made, unless you tell the software to log everytime simply touches your car. Get it?

Good Luck