McAfee Firewall
136 McAfee Office
Some network communications are needed to maintain network-based
services. These ar e managed through user defined r ules under the SYSTEM
button feature o f Mc Afee Fi rewall. The default SYSTEM setting s feature
provides protection from hostile threats.
In addition,d urin gthe installationprocess, it willprompt y ou with some basi c
question s to set up McAfee Firewall to do specific tasks, according to your
needs (e.g. allow sharing of files or not).
About Winsock 2
McAf e e Firewall uses an AP I (Application Pro gramming Interface) t hat is not
supported by versions of Winsock prior to v2.0. McA fee Firewall checks for
the presence of W insock 2 during the instal lation proced ure an d will inform
you if the system does not have i t. If you have the latest browser (e.g., Internet
Explorer 5), this component is already built-in and you will not r eceive this
prompt. Ot herwise, you c an get a fr ee upgrade and is ava ilable from
http://www.microsoft.com as well as other Web sites.
Configuring McAfee Firewall
The configuration o f McAfee Firewall is divided into two parts—application
and system. U pon installation, a b ase set of ru les for system services such as
ICMP, DH CP and ARP is inst alled (these are considered de fault se ttings). The
applications part is personalized. Whenever you run a new pr o gram t hat
attempts to communicate over the Internet, McAfee Firewall will prompt y ou
whether you trust the program or not.
For example, using the Netscape W eb browser, enter a Web address or the
Uniform Resource Locator inthelocationbar andthen pressENTE R.Netscape
will attem pt t o connect to that URL over the Int ernet. The first time you do this,
McAfee Firewall pr o mpts if you "trust" Net scape. If you say " Yes", McA fee
Firewall notes N etscape is a llow ed a nd w henever you us e N etscape in the
future, McAfee Firewall w ill allow Netscape traffic.
Behind the scenes, McAfee Firewall creates a rule allowing Netscape to
com munica te to the specific UR L you ha ve indicat ed a nd then de lete s the rule
once all traffic is received or once you exit Netscape. Additionally, when
trojansonyoursystem tryto communicate outfrom yourPC, M cAfee Firewall
will also prompt you whether you trust them or not, and the decision to stop
trojan s is easy and instantaneous.
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