Security News > 2021 > October > Firewalls? Pfft – it's no match for my mighty spares-bin PC

Who, Me? Start your week with a warning about those temporary emergency hacks that all too often end up permanent in today's edition of Who, Me? Our story comes from "Gary" - for that is not his name - who worked for a firm that offered a variety of services to the UK banking sector.

"Except it didn't," Gary told us, "Because after several fruitless months, the new shiny 'Big Red Firewall' still flatly refused to pass packets on two ports from one host to the other."

How hard could it be? A PC and some NICs were scavenged from the spares bin.

A Linux distro was installed and tweaks were made with iptables and... hey presto! A working solution!

"The bank never knew any wiser except it was working as they needed."

"Amazingly, the proper firewall was made to work inside of 48 hours. Amazing how attention was somewhat focused...".

News URL

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2021/10/04/who_me/