Greetings --
I would say "yes," for two reasons.
First, like WinXP's built-in firewall, NAT-capable routers do
nothing to protect the uninformed user from him/herself. Again -- and
I _cannot_ emphasize this enough -- almost all spyware and many
Trojans and worms are downloaded and installed deliberately (albeit
unknowingly) by the user. So a software firewall, such as Sygate or
ZoneAlarm, that can detect and warn the user of unauthorized out-going
traffic is an important element of protecting one's privacy and
security. Most antivirus applications do not scan for or protect you
from adware/spyware, because, after all, you've installed them
yourself, so you must want them there, right?
Secondly, if you're operating on a large network, and don't have a
software firewall in place, your only intrusion protection is the
LAN's perimeter firewall. What is there to safeguard your workstation
from being compromised by a worm or Trojan installed upon another
workstation on the LAN by a user who inadvertently downloaded and
installed something malicious? An awful lot of LANs were compromised
by Blaster and Welchia because some users connected their laptops to
their unprotected home networks, or to compromised public networks -
like those in hotels and airports, and then returned to the office and
plugged into the company LAN.
Bruce Chambers
--
Help us help you:
You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on
having both at once. -- RAH
