Tech Bitch

Criminals are never at a loss for new materials. They’re also a pain in the friggin’ ass. Professional malcode authors are constantly evolving their tactics at the expense of unsuspecting victims, driven by the goal of detection evasion and greater profitability. Authors, like those behind Storm Worm, have automation systems designed to pump out new variants every hour, minute, or even second. With malware authors releasing new variants at a blazing pace, 2008 will be another record year of malware.

There is a raft of anti-malware solutions on the market, but Comodo Firewall Pro 3.0 is a little different - it’s a highly effective and totally free software firewall application. It’s a proactive solution based on Comodo’s new ‘A-VSMART’ technology architecture - short for ‘Anti-Virus, Spyware, Malware, Rootkit and Trojan’ - and helps prevent virtually all types of threats from penetrating your computer. Yet despite its sophisticated level of prevention, the software remains easy to install and use, and offers plenty of customisation options for the advanced user.

Comodo Firewall Pro 3.0 does a great job of protecting computers from malware because it operates from a prevention rather than a detection perspective, and incorporates a sophisticated, layered threat management approach. Unlike detection/signature-based firewalls and anti-virus solutions that allow all applications to gain access to system resources and then try to detect previously identified viruses by their signature, Comodo Firewall Pro takes the opposite approach - it allows only those applications known to be safe to gain access to computer resources, greatly reducing the probability of damage occurring.

Comodo Firewall Pro 3.0 uses an advanced Host Intrusion Prevention System (HIPS) that proactively monitors system and system processes to detect and prevent system changes such as rootkit installations, inter-process memory injections, and key-loggers. HIPS technology is driven by a white list architecture which identifies trusted applications and prevents untrusted applications being installed onto your computer. Comodo says it has one of the largest white lists in the industry, with a database of nearly 1 million safe executables. The integrity of every executable is checked against this database to determine whether or not it is genuine before it is given installation rights. With this system, potentially damaging applications should be prevented from being ever being installed.

How much interaction you have with the software relies on how you install and configure it. Typically, if you choose ‘Basic’ mode you don’t need to do much at all - you get a simple personal firewall that protects against attack from outside and controls which programs can access the Internet, much like ZoneLabs’ ZoneAlarm. Opting for ‘Advanced’ monitors and protects many other critical system resources, meaning you’ll get a lot more queries and notifications which need actioning. Thankfully, you can minimise pop-ups by allowing the software to automatically approve any program found in Comodo’s database of safe programs.

It also provides you with the ability to install the solution in Clean PC mode, which is useful for new PCs. In these cases, Comodo Firewall Pro creates a profile of the computer with all existing applications registered as safe. The firewall then prevents any unrecognised applications from being installed unless the application is recognized by Comodo’s white list, or you grant installation permissions. It also prevents any suspicious system processes from running. Furthermore, ‘Stealth’ mode helps to make your PC ‘completely’ invisible to opportunistic port scans, there’s a Wizard-based auto-detection of trusted zones, and you can password protect all firewall settings.

Version 3.0 sports a redesigned user interface without the separate Comodo Launch Pad used by Version 2.0. The updated software also offers a default summary screen displaying an immediate heads-up on all vital security settings and provides a central point of navigation to every part of the application. Pop-Up alerts also provide critical security information, such as when the firewall detects a potential security threat. Version 3.0 gives you more control over security settings. For instance, you can quickly set granular Internet access rights and privileges on a global or per application basis using the flexible and easy to understand interface, and the introduction of pre-set security policies allow you to deploy a relatively sophisticated hierarchy of firewall rules with a couple of mouse clicks. A vastly improved log management module allows you to export records of firewall activity according to several user-defined filters.

Comodo Personal Firewall locks down your system against internal attacks such as Trojans, viruses, malicious software and external attacks by hackers. It supports Windows Vista, a new interface and a whole host of improved security features, including host intrusion protection, network-based firewall and an application analysis engine. As malware writers use a variety of techniques to evade simple program control, virtually every such technique is covered by Comodo Personal Firewall’s monitoring. If you are still using the Windows Firewall (or worse, no firewall at all), give Comodo a try - it’s free and you’ve got nothing to lose … [8.5]