Router questions about security

[Titanion]

My brother-in-law just got his WOW account hacked into, and he wants some advice about how to increase his Internet security. I would like to be able to tell him exactly what adding a router to his setup would do. What does adding a "hardware firewall" do to help with Internet security.

All he has not is Symantic firewall and antivirus.

 

[4745454b]

First, depending on how his account got hacked, a router probably won't do diddly to help prevent his WoW account from being hacked again. That said, I do suggest he use a router to increase overall security. It works like this.

When you sign onto the internet, your ISP gives you whats called an IP address. It looks something like this, 123.45.67.89. When you add a router, IT takes the IP address, 123.45.67.89, and assigns your computer a new address, 192.168.0.100. The 192.168.x.x numbers are special in that they are "non routable." Someone from outside your house/home network can't type 192.168.0.100 into their computer and talk to yours. Without a router, they could type in 123.45.67.89 and attempt to access your computer. They could type in 123.45.67.89, but then they are talking to your router, which is harder to gain access to then a windows machine. (assuming ofcourse you changed the login info.)

 

[Titanion]

Clear and concise... thanks...

I am not sure what the file symantic picked up was called... wowhacker.exe for all I know, but I will ask him and then post the name. He logged on to find characters deleted, and then after running symantic, he found the virus.

 

[4745454b]

In which case a router might not help at all. It all depends on how Virus.exe got onto his system. If he downloaded something he shouldn't have (perhaps with a P2P), then the router isn't going to do diddly. I suppose its possible to have a driveby download with an unpatched windows build also. In either of these cases, a router isn't going to help. If you click on something, the router assumes you ment to, and will allow the action.

 

[n0odle]

OUCH! He prolly got hit by a trojan keylogger :?