What does it mean: Sandbox

When you read the title, do you have visions of you as a young kid playing in a sandbox? It's OK, you can admit it, you are actually on the right track for this post. A sandbox in computing is somewhat like a sandbox in real life. An enclosed space that everything stays in. Ergo, a space where no program that you run in it can escape from it.

A sandbox is a space isolated from the rest of the computer that is used to run suspicious programs and code. From a malware standpoint, this is good. Because even if the program or code is malware, it cannot infect your PC.

I guess that there should be some visual explanation of this.

The sandbox is kind of like a jail inside the computer.

The diamond represents the program or code you are running in the sandbox.

 How is a sandbox like a jail?

The program can try all it wants, but it's not getting out of the sandbox.

So, this protects you from malware. This is because the program which may or may not be malware cannot reach any part of your machine.

At a security standpoint, this is a good thing. Because if a file or program is malicious, you can easily get rid of it without it doing anything to your computer. And if it is good or at least malware free, there is no hassle, drama, or crashes from a false positive like there is with antivirus software. This is actually why it is called a sandbox. Everything you put in the sandbox stays in the sandbox and does not come out.

Be sure to use the comment form below if you have a question, comment, or you just want to tell me how awesome I am. Really, I'm fine with any of those.

What Does It Mean: Firewall

Despite its name, the word wall really is not a good way to describe a firewall unless you have the firewall set to block everything, good, bad, and indifferent. In that case it really would be a wall, but this also means no internet which means you can't read your favorite anti-malware blog. : (

A better way to think of it would be like a guard station, the guard checks all the internet and network traffic that comes in and goes out of your computer. And if anything shows up sketchy, it stops it until it knows what to do either by preset rules, or by telling you that something going on and asking you what you want to do. If you tell the firewall to block it, it will block the traffic and stop the network or internet connection. Some advanced firewalls can also think for themselves and decide to allow or block the traffic depending on how it looks.

There are three kinds of firewalls: There are inbound only firewalls which only scan inbound traffic. There are outbound firewalls which only scan outbound traffic, and there are firewalls that do both.

Firewalls are often included with high end antivirus software but they can also be standalone programs with just the firewall included.

Firewalls are used to block malware coming from the network. It also blocks programs from connecting to the internet if you do not want them to.

I would have to say that my favorite type of firewall is one that thinks for itself and is inbound and outbound. The ideal firewall should think for itself, because you do not want to be bothered with making all of the decisions. Why? Because an alert saying "something.exe is trying to connect to the internet. Allow or Deny?" is not very helpful to those that don't know a whole lot about computers. And if you deny everything, that again means no internet which again means you can't read your favorite anti-malware blog.

I hope that this post helps explain what a firewall is and what it does. If you have a question, comment, or you want to tell me how awesome I am, be sure to leave a comment in the box below. It's FREE and always will be.

What Does It Mean? Layered Defense

These days, you can't read, hear. or see anything about computer security without catching the phrase "Layered Defense" or something like that. Well, the first thing you want to know is, what is it?

First, let's start with one layer of defense. Let's say you have an antivirus program. This should be enough, right? But the issue is, some malware can sneak past your antivirus or even disable the antivirus entirely. That looks a little something like this.

OK Defense. Some attacks blocked.

The Antivirus blocks some attacks, but some get to the computer and cause havoc.

How can we fix this issue? By using more then one layer. You can use Safe Computing for one.

Safe Computing is being smart before you click. Like I have said before, once you start thinking with your other head, you are a big target. Don't click on anything suspicious, and make sure you know what's real and what's not real.

You can also use a firewall. Security orientated firewalls block malware that attempts to access your computer via the network.

With these two extra layers in place, your "Layered Defense" looks a little more like this.

Better Defense. More attacks blocked.

So, the more layers you have, the less likely you are to get infected. If you still have trouble conceptualizing this, think of an onion. The more layers it has, the harder it is to get to the core.

And these three layers are just the beginning. You can add anything you like to increase your defenses based on your budget and your level of paranoia. And let us not forget that a little bit of paranoia when it comes to protecting what is important to you is a good thing. An example of top notch security would look a little like this.

Defense for the very paranoid. Most if not all attacks blocked.

 Now I am not about to suggest that you need to get all of this stuff. And there are some things in here that you may not know about. Stay tuned and we will discuss all of these unfamiliar aspects in future blog posts.