DHCP Primer Page 6 — How Secure Are You? Security seems to be on everyone's mind these days, and with good reason. There's a long list of ways for crackers to break into your network and vandalize your precious little files. Most vandals don't need to be motivated by financial gain -- they'll simply break into your system and wipe your hard drives for fun. Who knows, maybe they have an intense hatred for your brand of Web-based, post-modernist yarn. All the more reason for you to protect yourself. Fortunately, most of the hardware and software solutions we've covered come with some sort of rudimentary network firewall. The security features on these little boxes and software packages are made with home users in mind, so they should be easy to set up and configure. Don't let yourself be a sitting duck. Turn on those firewalls! If you're using a DHCP server that does not have any fancy security add-ons, you will need to use a third-party software security package. Not to fear as most are fairly cheap (under $100). ZDNet's Security Product Guide has a list of recommended packages to get you started. Even with DHCP in effect and a firewall in place, it's still a good idea to know something about IP security before you put your Carveresque short stories out there for all to see. Anita Karve has written an excellent article about IP security over at Planet IT. Of course, the dynamic host configuration protocol, by its very nature, has a built-in security measure -- dynamic addressing. A DHCP server keeps all of your internal network statistics private, so prying eyes will have a difficult time trying to figure out how many or what sorts of machines you are running on your network. Before you trundle off into the world to use your newly-absorbed security know-how to set up a safeguarded Web server and become the Web's next word smith genius, let's briefly review the benefits and uses of the dynamic host configuration protocol. To next page of DHCP To last page of DHCP Back to the HTML Home Page