McAfee Desktop Firewall 7.5
The McAfee product arrived in a standard software box, brimming with manuals and two CDs. The actual Firewall CD did not have an autorun or pretty menu, though the software itself was easy enough to find and install. There were a multitude of licensing options including 30- and 90-day evaluations, perpetual, and one- or two-year licenses. The software took only a few minutes to install, though the system was rather slow to restart. No immediate configuration was required, with IDS available on startup.• Block indefinitely,
• Block for a time limit (default 20 minutes), and
• Not block (allow traffic).
There is also a trace option, which traces the IP address of the intruder, providing all sorts of interesting data, including IP address, any available server banners, traceroute data, and whois information (basically a return fingerprinting). The port scan returned no information other than that all ports were filtered. The ping flood caused another popup notification, and was immediately blocked and all packets dropped.
Attempts to connect to a Windows file share brings up an alert and describes in detail what the connection is and gives you the option to allow, allow once, or deny. Surfing the Web and reading e-mail give similar warnings the first time, but allow you to simply set up rules to remember what actions should be allowed.
If customisation is needed, there are several protection level settings: Custom, Minimal, Client & Server (High and Medium), and Learning Starter, which is the basic mode that then learns about attacks and blocks them and creates a custom set. Custom rules are also very easy to set up and activate, including intrusion notification and logging.
EPolicy Orchestrator is an add-on product that allows remote distribution, installation, configuration, and reporting of the McAfee Desktop Firewall.
This product is very easy to install and use, comes preconfigured for high security without getting in the way too much, and has excellent manual and online support.
| Product: | McAfee Desktop Firewall |
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| Price: | From AU$61.53 per user |
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| Vendor: | Network Associates |
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| Phone: | 02 9761 4200 |
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| Web: | www.networkassociates.com |
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| Interoperability: |
½Great system with good management features. |
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| Futureproofing: |
½
Very easy to install and use. Good default rule set. |
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| ROI: |
Excellent pricing. |
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| Service: |
½Very good documentation and online help. |
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| Rating: |
½ |
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central silent installs?? was in ice cap but to my knowledge not yet wriitten into SP!!