April 4, 2025 • 29 mins
Helpful episodes to listen to first
Home Network Attacks From Within
Questions we answer in this episodeWhat is a firewall?
Why do I need more than one firewall?
Which device already has a firewall enabled?
What kinds of devices have an increased need for a firewall?
Episode summaryFirewalls in buildings stop fire from spreading.
Firewalls on computers do something similar: they stop malware from spreading.
Your router has a firewall that blocks threats from the internet before they reach your home network.
But what if the malware is already inside your network?
For that, you need a firewall on each of your computers.
These are especially vital for laptops, which often connect to public wifi.
And here’s the secret weapon almost nobody talks about: outbound firewalls.
They’re a unique and powerful extra layer of protection - and wildly underrated.
Call to actionPlease verify that the firewall is turned on for each computer in your home.
LinksChange Firewall settings on Mac
How to turn on Windows firewall
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
What is a firewall? I hope they use the name like my brain thinks, because my
(00:06):
brain thinks, oh, it's a way to create a wall of protection. You know, nice and
clean and simple. What do I need more than one? Wait, what? Why do I need more
than one firewall? You can have multiple firewalls? Hey, I didn't know this. I'm
(00:32):
excited to hear. Apparently, you can have more than one firewall. Which device
already has a firewall enabled? Like, this made my day. Like, whatever device that
is, I love when a device has built-in protection. Thank you. What kind of
(00:52):
devices have an increased need for firewalls? So, my immediate guess was
phones, and then I was like, no, wait, I want to change my answer to laptops. And
I only changed that because I thought, huh, we connect to a lot of, like,
with me and my laptop, I connect to multiple different Wi-Fi networks. Not
(01:18):
just my own, not just my own within the home, but other networks. And so, I was
like, I wonder if it's laptops. So, I'm excited to see what devices have an
increased need for them. I could be dead wrong on this one. So, that said, you know,
(01:39):
our listeners know by now, I'm not the techie. So, that's what we turn to you, our
Master Guardian, for. And as always, welcome back, and thanks for tuning in.
I'm Nick, and this is Super Simple Security Principles. Listen each week and
learn how to think, not what to think. This is episode 57. Wow. Getting up there, man.
(02:03):
Yeah. This phrase that you got right here, that you wrote, I was
super pumped with, because how firewalls protect you and what you might be
missing. We've talked about this on last week's episode. Like, to me, this is
(02:25):
important one. We're protecting from within, you know, and this is the most
universal, you know, and most fundamental protection you can get. So, dude, like,
now's the time to turn on that brain real quick. Harness in. We're gonna go,
(02:49):
because this is what we need. This is what we need. We're getting down to the
nitty-gritty, man. I love it. Yeah. Well, and you know, we'll hopefully keep it
super simple, right? If not, you know that I won't understand. So, I mean, it's that
simple. You'll complain. That's right. I'll be like, what? Well, and in the world of
(03:13):
computer firewalls, like, the actual tech behind them, I mean, there's, they are,
they're pretty complex behind the scenes. Yeah. And there's a lot of different
kinds, and especially when you talk about, like, the corporate environment and things,
but, you know, for our purposes, we're gonna ignore pretty much all that. We're
(03:33):
just gonna focus on one tiny little thing. Okay. And that's essentially like
a super simplified version of the, a few different ways that firewalls can
protect your home network. Awesome. Awesome. I love when we get to ignore all the
fluff and all that's going on around us, but we can focus in on one little tiny
(03:58):
detail. Like, for me, I'm like, okay, I can do that. I can focus in on that one area.
So, let's have it now. Yeah, and it's a big topic. Well, and so, you know, I was
interested when, so one of the questions, right, that we started with is what is a
firewall? Yeah. Now, depending on our listeners, you know, and what their
(04:22):
background is, then, you know, they might answer this quite differently than I do,
right, because the way I grew up, my first association with the word firewall
was a computer firewall, but long before computers had firewalls, if you look at
the history and if you're, you know, like I said, depending on what profession you
(04:43):
are, you might think of it more as a firewall in a building because that's
where it first came about, right? That's where my brain went. I would say, right, you
know what a firewall is in a building, I assume, then. Yep, yep, I do. Right, so why
don't you describe some? I don't understand how they work. I know that there is, well,
(05:05):
and even fireproof doors. They got fireproof doors now. Not fireproof, but
like doors that can act as a firewall. As a barrier, yeah. Well, and I'm not remotely
an expert either, right? Like, I read online, I've seen them in person, but the
way I understand it is that one of the main purposes of a firewall is to
(05:28):
subdivide a building into smaller sections, so if there's a fire in one
section, it can kind of, you know, fall apart and break away from the rest
of the building so that fire doesn't spread to the spread farther, right?
Exactly, exactly. Yep, that's how I understand anyway. Okay, yeah. So, computer
(05:52):
firewalls act, you know, in a similar way. They're no, you know, falling off and
breaking away, but the similarity is that it acts as a barrier between
networks to keep, you know, and in our, in a computer world, you know, the
analog of fire is malware, right? We want to stop bad stuff from spreading, right?
(06:16):
So, a firewall can not only protect, you know, if one network gets infected with
malware, it can protect it from another network, but also even within a network
from individual devices, right? Which is part of the reason why we bring this up,
because like we were talking about last episode, it's spreading in between devices
and so we need new protection and a firewall is one of those protections. You
(06:41):
can have a firewall on an individual device to protect it. Very cool. Okay, so
that is why I need more than one, because we talked about the IOT in
last week's episode, or the Internet of Things, and we have, if we did our call to
action, we have a ton, a ton of stuff that's connected to the Internet. Like,
(07:06):
dang. Yeah. Okay, okay, I'm getting it. Okay, this is, yeah. Now, those who, well,
those Internet of Things devices, unfortunately, don't have firewalls.
Nope. They're, in most cases, not sophisticated enough, but that's not the
(07:29):
end of the story. Okay. Yeah, we'll get to that. We'll get to that. There's, it's
gonna be a fine line to try to figure out where to, where to cover here and in
the future. So, but, so the multiple firewalls thing is right. It's not an
individual device that has multiple firewalls, but one thing that I didn't
(07:53):
name, in, in episodes 52 and 53, we talked a lot about the router, right? Yeah. And
without knowing it, we were talking a lot about the firewall in the router. We
never used the word firewall in those episodes, right? What we talked about, and
I know you probably don't remember, like, the number, obviously, in my notes I did,
(08:16):
right? That was the episode where we were talking about the simple rule for your
router of, I know you know this, don't answer the phone. Right. Right. Don't answer
those incoming calls. Yep. And so, your router has a lot of parts. Yeah. And a
(08:36):
firewall is one of them. Okay, nice. The firewall is specifically the part
that's responsible for enforcing that rule. Okay. Okay, so we never named it, but
that's where, like, and that's what, you know, every home, they've got a router,
they're gonna have a firewall on that router. So, that's, that's the first
(08:58):
firewall that everybody has, and is, everybody's using, essentially. Does that
answer our question, which device already has a firewall enabled? Is that a router?
Yeah, exactly. It's a, it's a router. Yep. And so, that's our first good
protection. It's to protect the fire, you know, the malware from coming, from
(09:19):
the internet, to your home network. Okay. Okay. Right. So. Right. But then, the
question, of course, comes up, what if it manages to spread through anyway? Or, if
we install malware, like we talked about, you know, these other ways, like, what if
there is already a fire in the home from, you know, so to speak, malware on some
(09:42):
device that's in your home network, however it got there, right? Right. In various ways,
like we talked about, what if it's in there? And, that's where the firewalls on
individual devices come in, because they serve the same purpose as the router on
the firewall. That is to keep it from spreading. Exactly. Yep. And, the only one
(10:06):
that protects is itself, right? The router's protecting all the devices,
spreading it from there. Individual devices, all they can do is protect
themselves. Okay. Okay. Doesn't make any sense. Okay. Yeah. But, that's another layer
of protection, so they bypass the first one, you know, you have a second one, and
that's, yeah. Okay. Okay. Gotcha. But, like we said, not all devices have firewalls. The
(10:33):
ones, the main ones that do, are gonna be your laptops and desktops. Okay. Not
phones. Well, so, phones, here's what I'll say about phones. They don't have
firewalls, exactly. There's nothing, like, when we talk about, if you go look and
(10:58):
search online, there's, you know, iOS, there's Android, they have firewalls. You're
not gonna see, yes, we have this firewall, right? And, it's because when phones were
designed, it's fundamentally, like, they already learned a lot of lessons about
security. They designed it, in a lot of ways, very differently. Okay. And, phones
(11:19):
aren't designed for all the same things. Like, when I'm, as a software developer,
I'm not gonna take my phone out to write code and to build apps, right? And, so,
one of the differences, a phone is designed for a very different set of
things than a laptop or a computer is, in terms of all the things that it can do.
(11:41):
And, so, a phone is much less capable, in some ways, and much more restricted, just
from its very core operating system, from day one, when they, you know, built, like,
the first iPhone, the first Android, they were built with a lot more different
protections and restrictions that we won't get into. And, they're not exactly
(12:01):
what I'd call a firewall, but they provide, let's say, comparable protections in a
lot of ways. So, I would not say they're more vulnerable than a laptop or
desktop. In fact, in general, if I was gonna pick which category of devices is
more vulnerable, I would absolutely pick laptops and desktops over phones. Okay.
(12:26):
Okay. That's surprising. Yeah, in broad strokes, that's... Right. Yeah. So, yeah, does that
answer your question about phone? It does, yeah. Okay. So, for, you know, your laptops
and your desktops, I do recommend that you turn on the firewalls. Okay. And, I'm
(12:54):
gonna, I'll put links in the show notes in order to do that. And, then, you know,
one other question I wanted to address under this is, I know, at least as I was
thinking about it, one question I thought might come up for people is, you know,
shouldn't my home network be a safe place? Like, right, yeah. Why do I need
(13:19):
firewalls on my individual devices? Right. Yeah. And, you know, our metaphor,
actually, or the, you know, the real world or the physical world firewalls kind of
give, you know, a reason for that. Right. And, it's the same kind of idea, what we've
been talking about. It's another layer. Right. It does mean something bad has
already happened. Right. Yeah. Because our home network is going to be a safer
(13:44):
place than anywhere else. Right. Right. Absolutely. No argument there. Yeah. But,
security isn't about some illusion of perfect safety. You know, your home
network is not perfect safety. It's just safer. Right. Right. So, it's about layered
protection. Because, even though you have a router with a firewall protecting all
(14:09):
the device on your home network, you know, what if a hacker managed to get past
your router's protection all these other ways that, you know, you actually install
malware on one of your devices, these things, and that's where the individual
device firewalls come in. Right. Well, this just makes sense. I mean, in life, we
have multiple layers of security, right? We've got, like, police force. We have
(14:34):
our ring doorbells. We have our locks on our doors. We've got all these layers
that we add of protection. So, essentially, we're doing the same thing
in the security world, in the IT world. Yeah. Yeah. I like that comparison, too.
Okay. I wasn't sure how much I was gonna have to, you know, try to kind of sell
(14:56):
people on this idea of needing, you know, firewalls on their individual devices. So,
just wanted to hear your thoughts on that. Yeah. Yeah. So, can I derail this for, like, two
seconds? Absolutely. Love it when you do. All right. So, years ago, this has been
(15:19):
years. Yeah. A long time. Like, when I start telling you what I was doing, you
can laugh at me, and you can be like, duh. I had a desktop that, for me, I wanted a
ton of music on. A ton of music. I was in college. Wanted to listen to a ton. So, I
went out, and I unfortunately ripped it off. There was some websites and some
(15:44):
places I could go that I could... Does BitTorrent sound at all familiar? Oh, absolutely it
does. Absolutely. Yep. You nailed it. Yeah. And I downloaded a ton of music. What I
didn't realize is that, in so doing, I had just invited... The computer person I
(16:08):
took my computer to said I had multiple Trojan horses put on my computer. I don't
know what that means exactly, but I know I had to pay to get my computer completely
wiped and get things reinstalled, and I never ever used that BitTorrent again,
(16:31):
ever. Good. Right. Learned my lesson. That said, would a firewall have helped me
circumvent that pain, or at least slowed that down? Because I had no clue. It wasn't
(16:56):
until my computer was working like crap, and I was like, what is wrong with
this? It was a brand new computer, and I'm like, it wasn't
working well. It was slow. Yeah. Yeah. So, really good question. Funny
story. And so, here's what I'll say. There is... We've talked mostly about firewalls
(17:23):
in terms of, let's call it, inbound protection, right? Yeah. Not answering
phone calls. Those incoming calls. Right. Right. However, there's another very
powerful category of firewalls that we will be talking about. I actually have a
episode planned for outbound, what I call outbound firewalls. And they are far
(17:47):
less common. Some of it, that is built into some degree in some, like in Windows
has some, but it's mostly turned off by default and whatever, but it's something
that I employ heavily myself. And there are some good options that we will talk
about those software, but here's what it would do in the case that you're talking
(18:08):
about. It wouldn't have stopped the Trojan from coming in. Basically, nothing
would have stopped that, essentially, because you were just doing something.
You know, you were basically, you know, download, you were clicking on a bad link
more or less, right? Like, you were voluntarily bringing something, that bad
malware onto your computer. So, yeah, that's just... But from there, what would
(18:33):
have helped is if you had an outbound firewall, what malware is always going to
do is it's going to communicate to what's called the command and control
center, I think. Anyway, you know, it's mothership, we'll call it. Right. Okay.
Yeah. You know, where it's going to steal your data, send it back to, get updates,
(18:54):
you know, do whatever it is. It's going to connect to the internet just like
everything else does, right? Right. And so if you have an outbound firewall, then
what can happen is it'll monitor and you only, you tell it what outbound
connections are allowed, what apps are allowed to connect to the internet.
(19:15):
Okay, cool. That makes sense. And so, you know, you use your web browser, you use
other things, you say, okay, yeah, they can connect to the internet, they can
connect. And then all of a sudden, this new app pops up, and it wants to connect
to the internet. And you're like, I don't know what that is. I don't want it doing
anything. Right. You know, and you say, nope. Yeah. Does that make sense? Makes
(19:38):
total sense. Okay. So that would... I'm excited for those future episodes. Yeah,
it would limit it a lot. And okay. Because two, one of the things that they
do, it's very common. I mean, I don't know, I shouldn't say very common. I
don't know the numbers exactly. But I've definitely helped people in your exact
(20:01):
situation, where they're like, my computer's super slow, all of a sudden.
Like, why? What's going on? And I look and yep, they have malware on there.
Right. And so, and the malware does all sorts of different things, but it likes
to use all your internet bandwidth it can. You know, so think of like, you know,
(20:22):
if every person on your, you know, in your household is trying to, you know,
stream, you know, 4k video all the time, or whatever, you know, they're gonna, you
could have a lot of slowdowns, both from the internet level, but also using
processing power on your device. Okay, um, to like do cryptocurrency mining, or
whatever else, I mean, they're going to take advantage of all the resources on
(20:45):
your computer that they can that they're built to anyway, depends on the specific
malware, what they're, you know, what they can do, but it's, it happens. And so,
yeah, and actually, we have there another episode, we're gonna talk about
specifically about that, about this kind of slowdown thing and what they're
doing. But here's what I'll say today about that is, essentially, when if you
(21:11):
get this kind of malware, a lot of times, your computer will basically become a
slave for the hackers to do whatever they want with your kind of slave in
their slave factory, their their mind, you know, your, your computer, but you
don't know it, right? Like, right, unknowingly, your device is a slave to
(21:32):
just do whatever they want. That sucks. Yeah. So yeah, great question. Okay. Okay.
So I think we have one more question to answer. We do. Yep. And you were exactly
right. It is your laptop.
(21:55):
Yes, I knew it.
No, did you? I can't remember. Did you give your reasons why you thought that
one? I can't remember.
I did. I actually, my thought was, is because with my laptop, I can connect to
so many different Wi Fi networks. And that was my question.
Right? Because right. Yeah. Right. You take it away from your home network.
(22:17):
Right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And that's right. That's pretty, obviously
your desktops, you don't haul around elsewhere, normally. Right. Yep. That is
exactly why. And so, you know, we've talked before about the value of VPN on
public Wi Fi on all these other networks, right? Well, right. Even more
(22:40):
important than a VPN is a firewall.
Okay.
So, because that that rule we talked about with router, you know, don't answer
the phone. That should apply to any device that you take on any network
outside of your home.
Right, right. That's kind of what I assumed. Oh, yeah, that's why I changed
(23:01):
my answer. I initially was like phone. Then I was like, No, it's got to be your
laptop.
Yeah, well, on your phone, sort of do that a lot more by default than your
laptop does. Basically, that's, that's what I guess lap. Yeah.
Yep. They're just
I'm kind of jealous of phone security design in some ways, because they are
(23:22):
just safer in a lot of ways. But
anyway.
So
yeah, I guess the way I would like to emphasize that is, when you connect to
any network, and especially like a public Wi Fi, compared to like, you know,
say you go to your friend's house or whatever, that's not quite as risky, but
(23:44):
especially public Wi Fi, consider your device to be in a war zone under constant
threat of attack. That's the perspective for any device that, you know, leaves
your home. Okay. So that's why and it's not just about the Wi Fi. It's about
firewall, you know, a firewall, and VPN, you know, those two, I mean, they
(24:05):
provide like, just really, really good protection.
Okay, so such that I don't have to use public Wi Fi.
Okay. Okay. So how hard is it to look, I don't know how to set up a firewall on
my laptop. I take it out right all the time. Yeah. Yeah. Well, so the good news
(24:26):
in, you know, these days, both Mac and Windows, which are, you know, the target
ones for our listeners, Linux is, if they're using Linux, that they can figure
them out themselves, probably. But they have them built in. And it's just a
matter of basically going to your this the settings for your operating system
and, and making sure it's all enabled. That's, you know, and I'm assuming we're
(24:51):
gonna put some links in our show notes so they can. Okay, so like me, it's not
too hard. If you're like me, and you're going, crap, I don't know how to do this,
we're gonna totally hook you up. We're gonna put links in our show notes. It
will help you set this all up. Yep. Okay, so don't worry. Yep.
(25:14):
Sorry, go ahead. I was gonna say all you have to do is click on our show notes
and figure it out. This is something that I personally am gonna do,
because I do. I take my laptop with me when I travel and when I go places. Yeah.
This is something I want set up. Like, yeah, well, and especially for you, because I
(25:35):
think, I'm pretty sure that for most people, if they're using Windows, the
firewall is probably on by default. Yeah. But not necessarily for you with a Mac.
I'm not sure if it's on by default. I have so many Macs. I've gone through
things. I'm not sure of exactly the default setting. I hope it's on by
default for a Mac, but I'm not sure. And in either case, I think it's worth
(25:59):
checking to make sure that it's on and working, because it's not, right, it's not
like this big complicated job. You don't have to download, install anything. You're
just using the one built-in to Mac or Windows and just making sure that it's
turned on and you don't have a bunch of exceptions to it that you're letting
(26:19):
things in. So, it's definitely not super hard. This is, I think, doable for
anybody listening to us. Excellent. Excellent. Yeah. And so, you already
extended our call to action, Nick, there, by the way. Did I? I stole your thunder.
(26:39):
You've done that to me a time or two. Yeah. Oh, no. I mean, you know, we might have to
think about the call to action, because by the time we get there, you know,
sometimes it's a little bit of a surprise, but mostly we're both just kind of, we
know what it is. Even, hopefully, the listener is well-prepared most of the
time. And, you know, so, I mean, it's kind of a good recap, just to summarize, you
(27:01):
know, we're making sure the firewall is turned on for each of the computers in
your home, especially laptops. But, yeah. There we go. That's an easy enough call
to action. And if you have questions, we're gonna throw in the show notes. So,
check those out. Awesome. That's a great call to action. Do I get to continue
(27:23):
on with our next episode? Oh, yeah. Get them excited. You're good at pumping up.
Okay. Yeah. So, I read this and I was like, okay, let's go. Like, I was excited for
this. In the next episode, you're gonna learn about using a guest network as a
layer of protection for your devices in your home, which I thought was kind of
(27:47):
cool. I was like, wait a second. That sounds like it could be a lot, but really,
we're gonna keep it super simple, and we're gonna find a way to where we could
talk about what a guest network can and can't protect you from. It is so vital,
and I said this before, but it's so vital to know and understand the risks we're
(28:07):
exposed to. So, you know, the fact that we're gonna go highlight what areas you
have that add protection, it's gonna be a great episode. So, I'm pretty pumped. I'm
pretty pumped. Like, here we go. Using a guest network as a layer of protection.
(28:29):
Yep. Awesome. That was a good show, man. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Are you ready to take action and
wondering where to start? Get my Bulletproof MyIdentity Starter Kit for
free. The seven most vital layers of protection everyone needs. I'll send you
(28:50):
one step at a time and help you if you get stuck. Just go to BulletproofMyID.com
and enter your name and email, and I will send you the first step. Again, that's
BulletproofMyID.com.
What is a firewall? I hope they use the name like my brain thinks, because my
(00:06):
brain thinks, oh, it's a way to create a wall of protection. You know, nice and
clean and simple. What do I need more than one? Wait, what? Why do I need more
than one firewall? You can have multiple firewalls? Hey, I didn't know this. I'm
(00:32):
excited to hear. Apparently, you can have more than one firewall. Which device
already has a firewall enabled? Like, this made my day. Like, whatever device that
is, I love when a device has built-in protection. Thank you. What kind of
(00:52):
devices have an increased need for firewalls? So, my immediate guess was
phones, and then I was like, no, wait, I want to change my answer to laptops. And
I only changed that because I thought, huh, we connect to a lot of, like,
with me and my laptop, I connect to multiple different Wi-Fi networks. Not
(01:18):
just my own, not just my own within the home, but other networks. And so, I was
like, I wonder if it's laptops. So, I'm excited to see what devices have an
increased need for them. I could be dead wrong on this one. So, that said, you know,
(01:39):
our listeners know by now, I'm not the techie. So, that's what we turn to you, our
Master Guardian, for. And as always, welcome back, and thanks for tuning in.
I'm Nick, and this is Super Simple Security Principles. Listen each week and
learn how to think, not what to think. This is episode 57. Wow. Getting up there, man.
(02:03):
Yeah. This phrase that you got right here, that you wrote, I was
super pumped with, because how firewalls protect you and what you might be
missing. We've talked about this on last week's episode. Like, to me, this is
(02:25):
important one. We're protecting from within, you know, and this is the most
universal, you know, and most fundamental protection you can get. So, dude, like,
now's the time to turn on that brain real quick. Harness in. We're gonna go,
(02:49):
because this is what we need. This is what we need. We're getting down to the
nitty-gritty, man. I love it. Yeah. Well, and you know, we'll hopefully keep it
super simple, right? If not, you know that I won't understand. So, I mean, it's that
simple. You'll complain. That's right. I'll be like, what? Well, and in the world of
(03:13):
computer firewalls, like, the actual tech behind them, I mean, there's, they are,
they're pretty complex behind the scenes. Yeah. And there's a lot of different
kinds, and especially when you talk about, like, the corporate environment and things,
but, you know, for our purposes, we're gonna ignore pretty much all that. We're
(03:33):
just gonna focus on one tiny little thing. Okay. And that's essentially like
a super simplified version of the, a few different ways that firewalls can
protect your home network. Awesome. Awesome. I love when we get to ignore all the
fluff and all that's going on around us, but we can focus in on one little tiny
(03:58):
detail. Like, for me, I'm like, okay, I can do that. I can focus in on that one area.
So, let's have it now. Yeah, and it's a big topic. Well, and so, you know, I was
interested when, so one of the questions, right, that we started with is what is a
firewall? Yeah. Now, depending on our listeners, you know, and what their
(04:22):
background is, then, you know, they might answer this quite differently than I do,
right, because the way I grew up, my first association with the word firewall
was a computer firewall, but long before computers had firewalls, if you look at
the history and if you're, you know, like I said, depending on what profession you
(04:43):
are, you might think of it more as a firewall in a building because that's
where it first came about, right? That's where my brain went. I would say, right, you
know what a firewall is in a building, I assume, then. Yep, yep, I do. Right, so why
don't you describe some? I don't understand how they work. I know that there is, well,
(05:05):
and even fireproof doors. They got fireproof doors now. Not fireproof, but
like doors that can act as a firewall. As a barrier, yeah. Well, and I'm not remotely
an expert either, right? Like, I read online, I've seen them in person, but the
way I understand it is that one of the main purposes of a firewall is to
(05:28):
subdivide a building into smaller sections, so if there's a fire in one
section, it can kind of, you know, fall apart and break away from the rest
of the building so that fire doesn't spread to the spread farther, right?
Exactly, exactly. Yep, that's how I understand anyway. Okay, yeah. So, computer
(05:52):
firewalls act, you know, in a similar way. They're no, you know, falling off and
breaking away, but the similarity is that it acts as a barrier between
networks to keep, you know, and in our, in a computer world, you know, the
analog of fire is malware, right? We want to stop bad stuff from spreading, right?
(06:16):
So, a firewall can not only protect, you know, if one network gets infected with
malware, it can protect it from another network, but also even within a network
from individual devices, right? Which is part of the reason why we bring this up,
because like we were talking about last episode, it's spreading in between devices
and so we need new protection and a firewall is one of those protections. You
(06:41):
can have a firewall on an individual device to protect it. Very cool. Okay, so
that is why I need more than one, because we talked about the IOT in
last week's episode, or the Internet of Things, and we have, if we did our call to
action, we have a ton, a ton of stuff that's connected to the Internet. Like,
(07:06):
dang. Yeah. Okay, okay, I'm getting it. Okay, this is, yeah. Now, those who, well,
those Internet of Things devices, unfortunately, don't have firewalls.
Nope. They're, in most cases, not sophisticated enough, but that's not the
(07:29):
end of the story. Okay. Yeah, we'll get to that. We'll get to that. There's, it's
gonna be a fine line to try to figure out where to, where to cover here and in
the future. So, but, so the multiple firewalls thing is right. It's not an
individual device that has multiple firewalls, but one thing that I didn't
(07:53):
name, in, in episodes 52 and 53, we talked a lot about the router, right? Yeah. And
without knowing it, we were talking a lot about the firewall in the router. We
never used the word firewall in those episodes, right? What we talked about, and
I know you probably don't remember, like, the number, obviously, in my notes I did,
(08:16):
right? That was the episode where we were talking about the simple rule for your
router of, I know you know this, don't answer the phone. Right. Right. Don't answer
those incoming calls. Yep. And so, your router has a lot of parts. Yeah. And a
(08:36):
firewall is one of them. Okay, nice. The firewall is specifically the part
that's responsible for enforcing that rule. Okay. Okay, so we never named it, but
that's where, like, and that's what, you know, every home, they've got a router,
they're gonna have a firewall on that router. So, that's, that's the first
(08:58):
firewall that everybody has, and is, everybody's using, essentially. Does that
answer our question, which device already has a firewall enabled? Is that a router?
Yeah, exactly. It's a, it's a router. Yep. And so, that's our first good
protection. It's to protect the fire, you know, the malware from coming, from
(09:19):
the internet, to your home network. Okay. Okay. Right. So. Right. But then, the
question, of course, comes up, what if it manages to spread through anyway? Or, if
we install malware, like we talked about, you know, these other ways, like, what if
there is already a fire in the home from, you know, so to speak, malware on some
(09:42):
device that's in your home network, however it got there, right? Right. In various ways,
like we talked about, what if it's in there? And, that's where the firewalls on
individual devices come in, because they serve the same purpose as the router on
the firewall. That is to keep it from spreading. Exactly. Yep. And, the only one
(10:06):
that protects is itself, right? The router's protecting all the devices,
spreading it from there. Individual devices, all they can do is protect
themselves. Okay. Okay. Doesn't make any sense. Okay. Yeah. But, that's another layer
of protection, so they bypass the first one, you know, you have a second one, and
that's, yeah. Okay. Okay. Gotcha. But, like we said, not all devices have firewalls. The
(10:33):
ones, the main ones that do, are gonna be your laptops and desktops. Okay. Not
phones. Well, so, phones, here's what I'll say about phones. They don't have
firewalls, exactly. There's nothing, like, when we talk about, if you go look and
(10:58):
search online, there's, you know, iOS, there's Android, they have firewalls. You're
not gonna see, yes, we have this firewall, right? And, it's because when phones were
designed, it's fundamentally, like, they already learned a lot of lessons about
security. They designed it, in a lot of ways, very differently. Okay. And, phones
(11:19):
aren't designed for all the same things. Like, when I'm, as a software developer,
I'm not gonna take my phone out to write code and to build apps, right? And, so,
one of the differences, a phone is designed for a very different set of
things than a laptop or a computer is, in terms of all the things that it can do.
(11:41):
And, so, a phone is much less capable, in some ways, and much more restricted, just
from its very core operating system, from day one, when they, you know, built, like,
the first iPhone, the first Android, they were built with a lot more different
protections and restrictions that we won't get into. And, they're not exactly
(12:01):
what I'd call a firewall, but they provide, let's say, comparable protections in a
lot of ways. So, I would not say they're more vulnerable than a laptop or
desktop. In fact, in general, if I was gonna pick which category of devices is
more vulnerable, I would absolutely pick laptops and desktops over phones. Okay.
(12:26):
Okay. That's surprising. Yeah, in broad strokes, that's... Right. Yeah. So, yeah, does that
answer your question about phone? It does, yeah. Okay. So, for, you know, your laptops
and your desktops, I do recommend that you turn on the firewalls. Okay. And, I'm
(12:54):
gonna, I'll put links in the show notes in order to do that. And, then, you know,
one other question I wanted to address under this is, I know, at least as I was
thinking about it, one question I thought might come up for people is, you know,
shouldn't my home network be a safe place? Like, right, yeah. Why do I need
(13:19):
firewalls on my individual devices? Right. Yeah. And, you know, our metaphor,
actually, or the, you know, the real world or the physical world firewalls kind of
give, you know, a reason for that. Right. And, it's the same kind of idea, what we've
been talking about. It's another layer. Right. It does mean something bad has
already happened. Right. Yeah. Because our home network is going to be a safer
(13:44):
place than anywhere else. Right. Right. Absolutely. No argument there. Yeah. But,
security isn't about some illusion of perfect safety. You know, your home
network is not perfect safety. It's just safer. Right. Right. So, it's about layered
protection. Because, even though you have a router with a firewall protecting all
(14:09):
the device on your home network, you know, what if a hacker managed to get past
your router's protection all these other ways that, you know, you actually install
malware on one of your devices, these things, and that's where the individual
device firewalls come in. Right. Well, this just makes sense. I mean, in life, we
have multiple layers of security, right? We've got, like, police force. We have
(14:34):
our ring doorbells. We have our locks on our doors. We've got all these layers
that we add of protection. So, essentially, we're doing the same thing
in the security world, in the IT world. Yeah. Yeah. I like that comparison, too.
Okay. I wasn't sure how much I was gonna have to, you know, try to kind of sell
(14:56):
people on this idea of needing, you know, firewalls on their individual devices. So,
just wanted to hear your thoughts on that. Yeah. Yeah. So, can I derail this for, like, two
seconds? Absolutely. Love it when you do. All right. So, years ago, this has been
(15:19):
years. Yeah. A long time. Like, when I start telling you what I was doing, you
can laugh at me, and you can be like, duh. I had a desktop that, for me, I wanted a
ton of music on. A ton of music. I was in college. Wanted to listen to a ton. So, I
went out, and I unfortunately ripped it off. There was some websites and some
(15:44):
places I could go that I could... Does BitTorrent sound at all familiar? Oh, absolutely it
does. Absolutely. Yep. You nailed it. Yeah. And I downloaded a ton of music. What I
didn't realize is that, in so doing, I had just invited... The computer person I
(16:08):
took my computer to said I had multiple Trojan horses put on my computer. I don't
know what that means exactly, but I know I had to pay to get my computer completely
wiped and get things reinstalled, and I never ever used that BitTorrent again,
(16:31):
ever. Good. Right. Learned my lesson. That said, would a firewall have helped me
circumvent that pain, or at least slowed that down? Because I had no clue. It wasn't
(16:56):
until my computer was working like crap, and I was like, what is wrong with
this? It was a brand new computer, and I'm like, it wasn't
working well. It was slow. Yeah. Yeah. So, really good question. Funny
story. And so, here's what I'll say. There is... We've talked mostly about firewalls
(17:23):
in terms of, let's call it, inbound protection, right? Yeah. Not answering
phone calls. Those incoming calls. Right. Right. However, there's another very
powerful category of firewalls that we will be talking about. I actually have a
episode planned for outbound, what I call outbound firewalls. And they are far
(17:47):
less common. Some of it, that is built into some degree in some, like in Windows
has some, but it's mostly turned off by default and whatever, but it's something
that I employ heavily myself. And there are some good options that we will talk
about those software, but here's what it would do in the case that you're talking
(18:08):
about. It wouldn't have stopped the Trojan from coming in. Basically, nothing
would have stopped that, essentially, because you were just doing something.
You know, you were basically, you know, download, you were clicking on a bad link
more or less, right? Like, you were voluntarily bringing something, that bad
malware onto your computer. So, yeah, that's just... But from there, what would
(18:33):
have helped is if you had an outbound firewall, what malware is always going to
do is it's going to communicate to what's called the command and control
center, I think. Anyway, you know, it's mothership, we'll call it. Right. Okay.
Yeah. You know, where it's going to steal your data, send it back to, get updates,
(18:54):
you know, do whatever it is. It's going to connect to the internet just like
everything else does, right? Right. And so if you have an outbound firewall, then
what can happen is it'll monitor and you only, you tell it what outbound
connections are allowed, what apps are allowed to connect to the internet.
(19:15):
Okay, cool. That makes sense. And so, you know, you use your web browser, you use
other things, you say, okay, yeah, they can connect to the internet, they can
connect. And then all of a sudden, this new app pops up, and it wants to connect
to the internet. And you're like, I don't know what that is. I don't want it doing
anything. Right. You know, and you say, nope. Yeah. Does that make sense? Makes
(19:38):
total sense. Okay. So that would... I'm excited for those future episodes. Yeah,
it would limit it a lot. And okay. Because two, one of the things that they
do, it's very common. I mean, I don't know, I shouldn't say very common. I
don't know the numbers exactly. But I've definitely helped people in your exact
(20:01):
situation, where they're like, my computer's super slow, all of a sudden.
Like, why? What's going on? And I look and yep, they have malware on there.
Right. And so, and the malware does all sorts of different things, but it likes
to use all your internet bandwidth it can. You know, so think of like, you know,
(20:22):
if every person on your, you know, in your household is trying to, you know,
stream, you know, 4k video all the time, or whatever, you know, they're gonna, you
could have a lot of slowdowns, both from the internet level, but also using
processing power on your device. Okay, um, to like do cryptocurrency mining, or
whatever else, I mean, they're going to take advantage of all the resources on
(20:45):
your computer that they can that they're built to anyway, depends on the specific
malware, what they're, you know, what they can do, but it's, it happens. And so,
yeah, and actually, we have there another episode, we're gonna talk about
specifically about that, about this kind of slowdown thing and what they're
doing. But here's what I'll say today about that is, essentially, when if you
(21:11):
get this kind of malware, a lot of times, your computer will basically become a
slave for the hackers to do whatever they want with your kind of slave in
their slave factory, their their mind, you know, your, your computer, but you
don't know it, right? Like, right, unknowingly, your device is a slave to
(21:32):
just do whatever they want. That sucks. Yeah. So yeah, great question. Okay. Okay.
So I think we have one more question to answer. We do. Yep. And you were exactly
right. It is your laptop.
(21:55):
Yes, I knew it.
No, did you? I can't remember. Did you give your reasons why you thought that
one? I can't remember.
I did. I actually, my thought was, is because with my laptop, I can connect to
so many different Wi Fi networks. And that was my question.
Right? Because right. Yeah. Right. You take it away from your home network.
(22:17):
Right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And that's right. That's pretty, obviously
your desktops, you don't haul around elsewhere, normally. Right. Yep. That is
exactly why. And so, you know, we've talked before about the value of VPN on
public Wi Fi on all these other networks, right? Well, right. Even more
(22:40):
important than a VPN is a firewall.
Okay.
So, because that that rule we talked about with router, you know, don't answer
the phone. That should apply to any device that you take on any network
outside of your home.
Right, right. That's kind of what I assumed. Oh, yeah, that's why I changed
(23:01):
my answer. I initially was like phone. Then I was like, No, it's got to be your
laptop.
Yeah, well, on your phone, sort of do that a lot more by default than your
laptop does. Basically, that's, that's what I guess lap. Yeah.
Yep. They're just
I'm kind of jealous of phone security design in some ways, because they are
(23:22):
just safer in a lot of ways. But
anyway.
So
yeah, I guess the way I would like to emphasize that is, when you connect to
any network, and especially like a public Wi Fi, compared to like, you know,
say you go to your friend's house or whatever, that's not quite as risky, but
(23:44):
especially public Wi Fi, consider your device to be in a war zone under constant
threat of attack. That's the perspective for any device that, you know, leaves
your home. Okay. So that's why and it's not just about the Wi Fi. It's about
firewall, you know, a firewall, and VPN, you know, those two, I mean, they
(24:05):
provide like, just really, really good protection.
Okay, so such that I don't have to use public Wi Fi.
Okay. Okay. So how hard is it to look, I don't know how to set up a firewall on
my laptop. I take it out right all the time. Yeah. Yeah. Well, so the good news
(24:26):
in, you know, these days, both Mac and Windows, which are, you know, the target
ones for our listeners, Linux is, if they're using Linux, that they can figure
them out themselves, probably. But they have them built in. And it's just a
matter of basically going to your this the settings for your operating system
and, and making sure it's all enabled. That's, you know, and I'm assuming we're
(24:51):
gonna put some links in our show notes so they can. Okay, so like me, it's not
too hard. If you're like me, and you're going, crap, I don't know how to do this,
we're gonna totally hook you up. We're gonna put links in our show notes. It
will help you set this all up. Yep. Okay, so don't worry. Yep.
(25:14):
Sorry, go ahead. I was gonna say all you have to do is click on our show notes
and figure it out. This is something that I personally am gonna do,
because I do. I take my laptop with me when I travel and when I go places. Yeah.
This is something I want set up. Like, yeah, well, and especially for you, because I
(25:35):
think, I'm pretty sure that for most people, if they're using Windows, the
firewall is probably on by default. Yeah. But not necessarily for you with a Mac.
I'm not sure if it's on by default. I have so many Macs. I've gone through
things. I'm not sure of exactly the default setting. I hope it's on by
default for a Mac, but I'm not sure. And in either case, I think it's worth
(25:59):
checking to make sure that it's on and working, because it's not, right, it's not
like this big complicated job. You don't have to download, install anything. You're
just using the one built-in to Mac or Windows and just making sure that it's
turned on and you don't have a bunch of exceptions to it that you're letting
(26:19):
things in. So, it's definitely not super hard. This is, I think, doable for
anybody listening to us. Excellent. Excellent. Yeah. And so, you already
extended our call to action, Nick, there, by the way. Did I? I stole your thunder.
(26:39):
You've done that to me a time or two. Yeah. Oh, no. I mean, you know, we might have to
think about the call to action, because by the time we get there, you know,
sometimes it's a little bit of a surprise, but mostly we're both just kind of, we
know what it is. Even, hopefully, the listener is well-prepared most of the
time. And, you know, so, I mean, it's kind of a good recap, just to summarize, you
(27:01):
know, we're making sure the firewall is turned on for each of the computers in
your home, especially laptops. But, yeah. There we go. That's an easy enough call
to action. And if you have questions, we're gonna throw in the show notes. So,
check those out. Awesome. That's a great call to action. Do I get to continue
(27:23):
on with our next episode? Oh, yeah. Get them excited. You're good at pumping up.
Okay. Yeah. So, I read this and I was like, okay, let's go. Like, I was excited for
this. In the next episode, you're gonna learn about using a guest network as a
layer of protection for your devices in your home, which I thought was kind of
(27:47):
cool. I was like, wait a second. That sounds like it could be a lot, but really,
we're gonna keep it super simple, and we're gonna find a way to where we could
talk about what a guest network can and can't protect you from. It is so vital,
and I said this before, but it's so vital to know and understand the risks we're
(28:07):
exposed to. So, you know, the fact that we're gonna go highlight what areas you
have that add protection, it's gonna be a great episode. So, I'm pretty pumped. I'm
pretty pumped. Like, here we go. Using a guest network as a layer of protection.
(28:29):
Yep. Awesome. That was a good show, man. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Are you ready to take action and
wondering where to start? Get my Bulletproof MyIdentity Starter Kit for
free. The seven most vital layers of protection everyone needs. I'll send you
(28:50):
one step at a time and help you if you get stuck. Just go to BulletproofMyID.com
and enter your name and email, and I will send you the first step. Again, that's
BulletproofMyID.com.
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