Firewalls = Double-Edged Sword?

[Tiger Shark]

As it happens, I tested the backups at the site I worked at today

I have a little fun once a month or so asking my employee responsible for the backups to restore one of my files from around three weeks before..... To date she has never failed.... But it's nice to keep her on her toes......

But let's _never_ expect a home user to even consider a backup..... They never, (ok, I lie a little.... ), lose files at work..... How could they lose them at home?

[echocontrol]

Originally posted here by MsMittens
That I don't know about. It helps in having a layered security environment but is it essential? That's been a bit of a debate going on here for a while. In one of my courses I'm changing the labs so that students are required to secure a network without a firewall. The reason? I think too many people are using firewalls as crutches.

They configure firewalls well enough but forget to harden their systems and ensure their systems are secure. They make the assumption that attacks will only come from outside the network and forget about the 40% potential of attacks from inside (e.g., disgruntled employees, curious employees, malicious employees, contractors, etc.). There seems to be this idea that we depend on firewalls solely for our security when in fact it is a combination of a lot of things, as you've pointed out.

Though, this whole discussion is mote if we don't have a savvy user (which probably represents -- I know, generalization -- about 80% of all users out there).

well i'm not a computer genius and didn't have a firewall untill a couple of days ago. ok, well i run the evil aol and am broke so i'm using the mcafee virus and firewall from them. so....because of that i don't have access to alot of extras that the firewall site offers. like being able to block ip sites automatically or sending the info on (which i think is a crime, because i get alot of repeat sites trying to get in). so i've had to figure out on my own system how to block web sites and ip addresses.