Ten questions to Firewall' Developer: Zone Labs

September 27, 2002

The creators of the Zone Alarm firewall family answer PC Flank' questions about their product and Internet Security.

PC Flank:
There are many firewalls on the market. What distinguishes ZoneAlarm family firewalls from the other products?
ZoneLabs:
Overall, the ease-of-use of the Zone Labs' products sets us apart. Many want set & forget, others are interested in customizing their settings. Either way, ease-of-use combined with superb security are our guiding principles.

Another distinguishing characteristic of Zone Labs' security solutions is our unique and pro-active 'guilty until proven innocent' method to protecting PCs from both known and unknown attacks. This approach combines Program Control to manage which applications are connecting to the Internet; a stealth firewall to barricade the PC from external attack; and MailSafe to identify and quarantine potentially harmful email attachments.

Program Control, or outbound filtering, alerts the user whenever an application wishes to communicate with the Internet. In all three ZoneAlarm products, several verification steps are taken to ensure that the application has not been changed or subverted by malicious code. This prevents spyware and Trojan horses from "phoning home" and transmitting sensitive or personal data to others.

The second feature, stealth mode, makes the PC invisible on the Internet. If the PC can't be seen, it can't be easily attacked. ZoneAlarm, ZoneAlarm Plus, and ZoneAlarm Pro provide superior protection to traditional firewalls and solutions that simply hide PCs' IP addresses within a network.

MailSafe identifies and quarantines suspicious email attachments for you upon their arrival. ZoneAlarm looks out for .vbs scripts, like the infamous Love Bug, while ZoneAlarm Plus and Pro look out for 46 different file types.

Zone Labs' enterprise solutions also are based on the above principles and built on the same patented technology.

PC Flank:
What features will be added to your firewall until the end of year? What improvements should we expect?
Zone Labs:
We don't want to let any cats out :> so we'll refrain from pre-announcing new and exciting features and just say that Zone Labs will continue to improve upon and add to our award-winning product line in both the consumer and enterprise space, as well as add new services. Our AlertAdvisor service (announced on March 6, 2002) is only the beginning of the various services we plan to offer. In addition, over the next couple years our focus will be on international expansion. For example, last year we opened our first European office in Frankfurt and are in the process of localizing our products -ZoneAlarm Pro is now available in French, German, Japanese and Spanish.

PC Flank:
When will ZoneAlarm personal firewall pass all leaktests?
Zone Labs:
For an exploits like leaktests to succeed, first, they need to get onto a system. Zone Labs users are protected by several layers of security -including MailSafe- that help to prevent such exploits from even arriving on the desktop via email.

Please also note leaktests are theoretical vulnerabilities that researchers have identified but which are not seen in the wild yet. However, because security is of paramount concern, in future software versions, we do plan to include additional safeguards and 'hardening' features in our software that will eliminate any risk from these types of vulnerabilities. For example, versions 3.0 of our ZoneAlarm product line hardened security to successfully repel Firehole.

PC Flank:
There is an opinion claiming security holes used by those leaktests are browsers' vulnerabilities and firewalls are not responsible for such holes. Do you agree?
Zone Labs:
Wherever the fault may lie, the fact of the matter is that the potential is out there. Because of this potential, Zone Labs will continue to harden security with every release of our product.

PC Flank:
Currently there are three versions of ZoneAlarm firewalls: Zone Alarm free, Zone Alarm Plus and ZoneAlarm Pro. What version do you recommend to home users who would like to tighten up their security? What are the major differences between those versions?
Zone Labs:
Users in need of basic Internet security should look at ZoneAlarm. ZoneAlarm is an award-winning personal firewall that automatically blocks dangerous Internet threats -known and unknown- guarding your PC from hackers and data thieves. It provides the basic protection individuals need to secure their PC and keep their valuable information private. ZoneAlarm is free for individual and non-profit use.

Geared for "firewall purist," ZoneAlarm Plus builds on the strong foundation of ZoneAlarm and adds an enhanced version of MailSafe-Email Attachment Protection to protect against a greater variety of email-borne Internet threats; password protection; application and component fingerprinting to ensure that rogue code can't masquerade as a trusted application in order to gain unauthorized access; easy to use, "one click" support for local area networks, including wireless networks; and advanced configuration utilities for more technical users.

For advanced security and privacy, the award-winning ZoneAlarm Pro is the top-of-the-line personal firewall, offering even more robust functionality, all the features of ZoneAlarm Plus, with the addition of privacy control features such as ad-blocking, cookie control, and active content control.

PC Flank:
How do you rank your product with the other personal firewalls?
Zone Labs:
Many firewall products are designed simply to stop infiltration by outsiders. With today's threats, this type of protection is no longer adequate. Zone Labs products have the ability to filter outbound Internet connections, as well as inbound connections. Inbound filtering will not catch a Trojan horse, spyware, or other malicious code has slipped past the firewall (usually with an email attachment or due to a visit to a web site with malicious active content) and is trying to "call home." Zone Lab's products does catch these types of threats and alerts the user so they can stop the transmission and remain in control of their PC connections.

In addition, most profile-based products like antivirus and Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS) can only protect against "known" threats. Zone Labs products are able to protect against both known and unknown threats so we are able to stop new viruses before the antivirus and IDS products know they exist.

PC Flank:
What firewall software do you consider your rivals?
Zone Labs:
Other companies in the security space are ISS, Sygate, and Symantec.

PC Flank:
What do you think is the future of personal firewalls?
Zone Labs:
Internet security has become top-of-mind with a much wider group of people than ever before. No longer the arcane focus of IT departments, effectively securing PCs and the information stored on those PCs should be and is top of mind with all computer users. The continuing spate of security breaches drives home the seriousness of Internet security to every PC user - whether in the enterprise or in the home. We are all responsible for the security on the Internet and that fact will continue to be driven home as hackers grow increasingly sophisticated.

PC Flank:
Why are so many firewalls being developed worldwide? Does it mean the industry can't produce "the perfect software"?
Zone Labs:
Rather than an inability to develop "the perfect software," the breadth of firewalls on the market can be attributed to awareness and opportunity. Security is an ever-increasing problem for both businesses and the individual computer user.

Hackers have more tools available to them now, including modifiable source code for Trojan horse programs, web sites and exchanges that make it easy to trade malicious code and tools to 'roll your own' viruses without requiring significant amounts of programming skill. Many hackers are now motivated by profit - they wish to find sensitive financial information, or hold data hostage. Several companies have been in the news in the last year because of breaches like this. These facts, combined with the fact that an ever increasing number of Internet users are now connected via always-on (and always vulnerable!) connections explain the proliferation offerings in the software firewall market.

PC Flank:
What security measures do you recommend to all users?
Zone Labs:
For the best security, we recommend a security product, like the ZoneAlarm product line, used in conjunction with an updated virus checker. There are good hardware solutions, too, such as the network routers that Linksys offers. The best precaution is to be proactive and to use strong defenses, layering as necessary. Because malicious code can be planted on the individual PC, we recommend that protection be installed on every PC.


Zone Labs web site:
http://www.zonelabs.com/