I provide IT Support to a number of foreign teachers residing in China. The problem I come across from time to time is “How do I improve my internet security from my home system?”
Security risks:
Spam
Visited site monitoring
No access to ProxyServers in China
ISP (or Other) monitoring of internet activity
Spyware
Viruses
IP Spoofing
Recent news indicated that many Chinese ISP were being blocked OS due to China’s low level of internet security, particularly with spammers spoofing IP Addresses. Many of the foreign teachers don’t like the idea of having their activities closely monitored regardless of their reasons and nature of their internet usage.
Fixes tried so far (not particularly satisfactory)
Antivirus software (Norton & McAfee)
Software firewalls (BlackIce Defender-BID, Tiny Personal Firewall-TPF, Zone Alarm-ZA)
Cache clearing, & cookie removal on a periodic basis.
One website indicated a problem with BID regarding allowing system information out. TPF is noisy and if it’s rule are not implemented carefully, causes problems with web-based eamil. ZA has similar issues.
The ideal solution would be a standard practice installation of a software-based solution that can be implemented on non-networked based systems that have a dial-up connection to the web. Hides the user’s local IP address and prevents all unauthorised access to system and/or user information.
Got any ideas? Can you put it into a nutshell for me?