Open Door Networks, maker of the Door Stop personal firewall, have announced a new product geared at protecting Macs with "always on" Internet connections. Whois There? allows users to know who was attempting to access their computer, and what that party was trying to do. According to Open Door:
Open Door Networks Inc. today announced its new "Whois There?" Firewall Advisor. Available immediately as a public beta release, "Whois There?" provides the next step in Internet security by helping users analyze and investigate the ever-increasing number of access attempts to their Macintosh. With "Whois There?" users can determine the level of risk of an "attack" detected by their personal firewall, find the name, email address and phone number of an administrator associated with the attackeris network, and even automatically draft an email to that administrator. With the ever-growing number of computers connected to the Internet through "always on" connections, there has been a significant increase in the number of hackers attempting to infiltrate those machines. Personal firewalls have been developed to thwart those attempts. As the number of attempts have increased, however, users have become increasingly confused as to the degree to which they should be worried about the attempts and what they can do in response. "Whois There?" works with the useris firewall to answer those questions.
"Whois There?" works with Open Dooris DoorStop Personal and Server Editions and with Symantecis newly announced Norton Personal Firewall, which is based on technology licensed from Open Door. Features of "Whois There?" include:
- Advanced Access History window displaying all logged access attempts and including security risk level and host name of the accessor.
- Windows summarizing access attempts by service type and accessor IP address.
- Built-in information about the most common attacks and their applicability specifically to the Macintosh environment (many attacks are targeted at, and effective only against, Windows machines).
- Automated "Whois" lookup to determine details of the accessoris network, including administrator name, address, phone number and email.
- Automated drafting of an email that can be used to notify the administrator of the access attempt and provide the administrator with details that may be useful in tracking the attempt.
Whois There? is currently available as a free beta. The final version is expected in January of 2001. Pricing has yet to be determined. You can find more information at the Open Door Networks web site.