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Situation:
You want to know if you should permit or block a communication when an alert for Norton Internet Security or Norton Personal Firewall appears.

Solution:
This document provides information regarding security alerts and what they mean. Because most users and computers are unique, there may be suggestions given in this document which do not apply to your situation. Always use your best judgement when changing the default settings within Norton Internet Security and Norton Personal Firewall.

When an alert appears, you must make two decisions. First, decide whether to permit the communication described in the alert, or to block it. Once this is decided, the second decision is whether to make a rule in Norton Internet Security or Norton Personal Firewall so that you do not see this specific alert again.

Making these decisions involves gathering information about the security situation reported by the alert, and then weighing that information against the risk level that you are comfortable with. Read the rest of this document for further information.


Balancing usability and security
When you choose whether to permit or block a communication, you are making a choice between usability and security.

Blocking a communication increases your computer's security, but may also decrease your computer's usability. For example, if you block all cookies, then you prevent your personal information from being stored and copied as cookies. This will restrict your access to Web sites which require cookies.

On the other hand, permitting a communication will generally increase your computer's usability, but it may also decrease your computer's security. That is, when you choose not to block or filter specific types of communication attempts, you allow programs more access to your computer. If a program is malicious, such as a Trojan horse, allowing that communication can damage the programs or data that is on your hard disk.

Making this choice is up to you. Norton Internet Security and Norton Personal Firewall often provide recommendations to help you make this choice, but only you know what level of security you need for your computer. Norton Internet Security and Norton Personal Firewall provide filtering options so that you can decide exactly how much risk you are willing to accept in order to have full use of your computer. How much your computer's security or usability may be affected by your choice depends on the nature of the communication and the severity of the threat.

If you would like to simply accept Norton Internet Security or Norton Personal Firewall's recommendations, read the document Handling alerts in Norton Internet Security and Norton Personal Firewall. For more information about making these decisions yourself every time you see an alert, continue reading this document.


Obtaining more information about security threats
Norton Internet Security and Norton Personal Firewall provide information on the alert window itself to help you decide whether to permit or block communication. There are three pieces of information that are the most helpful: the type of alert, the preselected choice, and the Alert Assistant.

The type of alert
Norton Internet Security and Norton Personal Firewall show the type of alert on the alert window. Some examples of common alerts types are:

• Internet Access Control Alert
• Confidential Information or Private Information Alert
• Security Alert
• Settings Alert
• Cookie Alert

The alert that you receive depends on the situation. The degree of threat posed by each of these situations is described in the document Responding to alerts with Norton Internet Security or Norton Personal Firewall.

The preselected choice
Norton Internet Security and Norton Personal Firewall help you to decide on an appropriate action by preselecting the recommended action. This recommendation takes into account the probable severity of the threat, and any known information about how this communication may affect your use of the computer.

For example, if the threat is a cookie, Norton Internet Security and Norton Personal Firewall make a decision based on the fact that most cookies are harmless and many Web sites do not allow you to use their site if you block their cookies. This situation is considered a low severity threat, but there is a possibility that blocking the cookie will affect your usage of the computer considerably. As a result, Norton Internet Security and Norton Personal Firewall usually recommend that you permit the cookie.

The Alert Assistant
The Alert Assistant provides information to help you decide how to handle the threat that the alert reports. The Alert Assistant is available on all alerts except for Settings Alerts. To access this information when you see an alert, click the Alert Assistant icon (see image below) on the main alert window.

The Alert Assistant provides the following information:

• The type of alert
• The threat level
• The communication that triggered this alert
• What these types of alerts indicate
• How to reduce the number of this type of alert that you receive

 

Document ID: 2003102212431136
Last Modified: 09/01/2005
Date Created: 10/22/2003
Operating System(s): Windows 98, Windows 98SE, Windows 2000, Windows XP Home Edition, Windows XP Professional Edition, Windows Me
Product(s): Norton Internet Security 2004 7.0, Norton Internet Security 2005 8.0, Norton Internet Security Professional 2004 7.0, Norton Personal Firewall 2004 7.0, Norton Personal Firewall 2005 8.0, Norton Internet Security 2005 AntiSpyware Edition 8.2

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