Internet Connection Security Guides

If you can’t keep a connection, check your modem, phone line, or any software that governs your connection. But there’s a chance your firewall is the nosy culprit. Some ISPs save money by disconnecting idle users to keep them from chewing up modems and bandwidth. To determine if a user is idle, the ISP sends a heartbeat message a small packet of data to test your connection to your machine. Some firewalls anti block heartbeats because they tend to use protocols that hackers also exploit. Zone Labs is one such firewall, but you can instruct it to permit heartbeats. If and when your ISP cuts your connection, open the Zone Labs Log Viewer by clicking the Alerts & Logs button in the Zone Labs interface. Then peruse the list to find the disconnection alert and note the Source DNS in the Entry Detail field. (DNS stands for Domain Name System, the method computers use to translate domains or Web site names into a set of numbers, and vice versa. Once you’ve found the DNS information a series of four numbers separated by dots add it to Zone Labs’ Trusted Zone. If you can’t find the DNS number you need, call your ISP to ask for the DNS number of the server that sends out heartbeats. Tell them why you need it, too, since it’s not every day that someone asks them for private network data. If you keep your firewall in good working order, you can trust it to keep you safe from the threats that mar an otherwise wonderful Web.