Using Norton™ Personal Firewall

The original Internet security and firewall settings provide a safe, automatic, and efficient way of protecting your computer. If you want to change or customize your protection, you can access most features from the Norton Security Online window tab. If you need to control additional settings, such as Trust Control or Program Control, you can use the Internet Security and Firewall options.

Norton Personal Firewall contains several features to help protect your assets from potential harm.

Personal Firewall General Options

General Rules include turning firewall protection on or off and monitoring programs and program components. Another general setting determines what, in the event of a detected risk, how Norton Personal Firewall with handle the risk: either let you alone and decide for itself what to do or ask you what to do when a decision is needed about allowing or blocking traffic.

Personal Firewall Program Control Rules

Firewall rules control how the Personal Firewall protects your computer from malicious programs and unauthorized access. The firewall automatically checks all traffic that comes in or out of your computer against these rules. The Personal Firewall uses two kinds of firewall rules: General rules and Program Control rules.

General rules control all other incoming and outgoing network traffic. General rules take first priority over Program Control rules. Within the set of General rules, there is an order of processing as well. Norton Security Online comes with a number of predefined General rules.

Program Control rules control Internet access for programs on your computer. The Program Control feature enables you to control settings—levels of access and program rules—for programs that access the Internet. You can do the following things with Program Control rules:

• Add a rule with the Add Rule wizard which guides you through setting up a rule's options in a step-by-step process
• Rename a rule
• Modify a rule's access setting
• Modify sequence of rules, moving a rule up or down the list
• Disengage a rule and re-engage it
• Remove a rule

Trust Control

The Trust Control feature enables you to choose which networks or computers you trust at a certain levels of access and which networks or computers you want to completely restrict from direct access to your computer.

Advanced Personal Firewall Features

The Advanced Settings feature enables you to manage General rules as well as create and activate detailed access rules and customize the ports your computer uses to view web pages.

Intrusion Prevention

The Intrusion Prevention feature prevents attacks on your computer based on recognized attack signatures. You can switch it on or off as well as manage an AutoBlock feature that can block a detected attack or, if the attacks are repeated, block all traffic coming from another computer.

Security Inspector

The Security Inspector scans for settings that can compromise your computer's security—for example, browser settings and instant messaging settings. It also checks for components that are common targets of Internet attacks: IP addresses and Microsoft Windows passwords. Security Inspector then offers recommendations to enable you to fix the vulnerable settings.

Security History

In addition to the firewall settings described above, the Security History offers the following view settings for firewall events:

• All Firewall Alerts, a melding of the traffic and network firewall alert categories
• Firewall - Traffic
• Firewall - Network