Personal Firewall 

A personal firewall is a software that runs on an individual's computer that blocks or permits network or internet traffic to and from a computer. A personal firewall is designed for an individual's protection thus it will protect only the computer on which it is installed.

Personal firewalls generally work in two ways: prompting the individual for access or intrusion detection.With prompting, the firewall displays a dialog box when a connection is attempted to the computer. This allows the individual the option to permit or deny the connection. Most personal firewalls have a "remember this setting" checkbox so that the software will not prompt for that particular connection again.With intrusion detection, the firewall is used to detect several types of malicious behaviors that can compromise the security and trust of a computer system. This includes network attacks against vulnerable services, data driven attacks on applications, host based attacks such as privilege escalation, unauthorized logins and access to sensitive files, and malware (viruses, trojan horses, and worms).

To summarize the use of a firewall, it is used to protect your computer from direct malware attacks from the network or the internet.

Post brought to you courtesy of Computer Tips By Olan