Modem firewall??

[morganimous]

Is there such a thing as a modem firewall? I have highspeed cable internet and some hours of the day, we can get online. Some hours it's no dice. Sunday morning in particular it is IMPOSSIBLE for us to connect. Twenty minutes ago my husband couldn't connect, and now here I am..... What does it all mean????

[Panama Red]

Are you referring to a firewall for the cable modem? You can have software firewall loaded on your computer or as part of XP SP2. And/or you can use a router that has a NAT firewall built in but I don't know of any firewall specifically on/for a modem. If you're experiencing connection issues, I'd suggest contacting your cable provider first and make sure the problem isn't on their end.

[morganimous]

Someone told my husband the reason we were having problems is because we must have had a hacker steal our computer's "fingerprint" and that person was logging on through our computer. I didn't know if any of that was true, or how to stop it.....

[mbossman2]

1st things 1st:

if you haven't done it already download one of the spyware/malware tools (ad-aware or spybot are good)...run that

then make sure that your antivirus software is up to date (if you dont have one AVG is a good one and the personal edition is free) and run that to see if you have any other surprises.

having done that and cleaned your machine then secure your PC:

Zone Alarm has a good firewall
XP has a pretty good embedded firewall
Look at a router for your broadband connection that has a firewall

make sure that you run your malware/spyware and AV on a regular basis (I set mine to run overnight every 3 days)

Originally Posted by morganimous Someone told my husband...

beware of the dreaded "someone", they may just be talking thru their hat (but then again so could I...but I am not ).

[morganimous]

I do have ad-aware and AVG running. But I will look into the firewalls you mentioned. Thanks very much for the advice.

Originally Posted by mbossman2 1st things 1st: if you haven't done it already download one of the spyware/malware tools (ad-aware or spybot are good)...run that then make sure that your antivirus software is up to date (if you dont have one AVG is a good one and the personal edition is free) and run that to see if you have any other surprises. having done that and cleaned your machine then secure your PC: Zone Alarm has a good firewall XP has a pretty good embedded firewall Look at a router for your broadband connection that has a firewall make sure that you run your malware/spyware and AV on a regular basis (I set mine to run overnight every 3 days) beware of the dreaded "someone", they may just be talking thru their hat (but then again so could I...but I am not ).