Trojan Horse

[clusterm2]

Will a decent firewall say Zonealarm for instance protect one from any trojans that actually get on your system?
Believing rightly or wrongly that trojans are not detected by the majority of anti-virus software I would expect Zone alarm to still warn me if some trojan is trying to send info out?

I use online banking all the time and the thought of a key logger getting onto my pc is rather scary.

 

[Donks]

Will a decent firewall say Zonealarm for instance protect one from any trojans that actually get on your system?
Believing rightly or wrongly that trojans are not detected by the majority of anti-virus software I would expect Zone alarm to still warn me if some trojan is trying to send info out?

I use online banking all the time and the thought of a key logger getting onto my pc is rather scary.

First, if you want a decent firewall, forget about a simple software one like ZoneAlarm. Get a hardware one. You can even get a very old computer that you can run linux on and use that as a firewall.
Regarding your question, depends on the trojan. A less sophisticated one will try to connect, and ZA will ask you if you want to allow access. If you say "yes", either because you weren't paying attention of the trojan tricked you (by using a fake name or something), you're screwed. If you say "no" you should be safe. A more sophisticated trojan can piggyback its comunications over the traffic from a browser or email or something like that. I'm not sure ZA could deal with that.

 

[clusterm2]

Re: Re: Trojan Horse

First, if you want a decent firewall, forget about a simple software one like ZoneAlarm. Get a hardware one. You can even get a very old computer that you can run linux on and use that as a firewall.
Regarding your question, depends on the trojan. A less sophisticated one will try to connect, and ZA will ask you if you want to allow access. If you say "yes", either because you weren't paying attention of the trojan tricked you (by using a fake name or something), you're screwed. If you say "no" you should be safe. A more sophisticated trojan can piggyback its comunications over the traffic from a browser or email or something like that. I'm not sure ZA could deal with that.

I have a firewall built in to my wireless modem router, is this better than Zone alarm if so why?

 

[Donks]

Re: Re: Re: Trojan Horse

I have a firewall built in to my wireless modem router, is this better than Zone alarm if so why?

Actually, for your particular concern, a software firewall is better.
Hardware and software firewalls both have advantages and disadvantages.
A HW one is very good at preventing attacks from the outside in, and you only need one for a whole network. The downside is that it treats outgoing traffic as safe (your concern) and that it might not report repeated attacks from a single outside address.
A SW one can protect from a malicious program already inside, when only programs that have manually been permitted to connect can do so. Downside, you need one per somputer you have, and it is more vulnerable to bugs. Not that long ago a worm came out that erased your boot sector, and it only targetted people with BlackICE, a SW firewall.

So if you already have a HW firewall, then set up the free version of ZA and use both

 

[mstricky]

I discovered a key logger on mine. I only knew because I installed the Yahoo anti spy tool bar and the first time I set off the anti spy, it came up with the key logger. I deleted it of course.

 

[Iconoclast]

I discovered a key logger on mine. I only knew because I installed the Yahoo anti spy tool bar and the first time I set off the anti spy, it came up with the key logger. I deleted it of course.

DAMMIT! Uh, I mean... good.