Is your firewall toast? A new report by Web security giant Internet Security Systems (ISSX ) suggests it certainly could use a few upgrades and some additional help. The company combed through data collected from the logs of thousands of . . .
Is your firewall toast? A new report by Web security giant Internet Security Systems (ISSX ) suggests it certainly could use a few upgrades and some additional help. The company combed through data collected from the logs of thousands of security devices it monitors for businesses ranging from mom-and-pops to multibillion-dollar global conglomerates. The conclusion: Perimeter defenses such as firewalls are not enough to ward off increasingly sophisticated worms and viruses.

Sure, ISS is more than happy to sell you a host of new security products. But the issues raised by its survey -- a comprehensive look at the state of Web security -- are quite revealing. The study, released on Apr. 3, found that 70% of all intrusion attempts now target port 80. Each computer has thousands of ports used for different services. Firewalls control, depending on your preferences, which ports are open or closed. But port 80 is now used on virtually every computer for Web surfing, so it's wide open. Shielding port 80 would gum up Web traffic as requests for info and responses from Web servers got backed up in a domino effect.

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