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Gamified Intelligent Cyber Aptitude and Skills Training (GICAST)
Gamified Intelligent Cyber Aptitude and Skills Training (GICAST)

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1.2 Configuring your own firewall

This section is part of the amber and green pathways.

In this section you will locate the personal firewall on your own computer and, if necessary, make modifications to its settings to provide the best possible protection.

You will need to have Administrator level access to the computer you use as you will be making changes to important parts of the operating system. If you do not have these permissions, request temporary administrator rights from the machine’s owner.

If your computer is in an office environment, or is supplied by your employer, please check that you are permitted to change the firewall settings before attempting this section. Many employers have preferred settings that are maintained by specialist staff and you should not attempt to change them without permission.

If you use the latest version of Windows, find the instructions to configure your personal firewall here [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)] .

If you use a Mac, for the latest version OS X, find the instructions here.

Other firewalls

Other firewalls are available either to download or as software packages that can be bought from retailers.

You may prefer to use one of these programs, but if you do, please remember:

  • you should only keep one firewall running at a time since multiple firewalls will not offer significantly better protection and can interfere with one another
  • you must keep one firewall running at all times.

Once you’ve set up your personal firewall, identify a type of traffic that you might want to allow (or deny) on your computer.

We’ve looked at firewalls as a necessity for the traditional computing devices such as desktops and laptops. What about smartphones?