{"id":14,"date":"2010-04-13T19:55:43","date_gmt":"2010-04-13T19:55:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/davcocomputer.com\/blog\/?p=14"},"modified":"2024-01-18T11:11:40","modified_gmt":"2024-01-18T15:11:40","slug":"home-and-office-network-security-solutions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/davcocomputer.com\/blog\/home-and-office-network-security-solutions\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Use a NAT Router?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Every computer connected to the Internet is exposed to dangers.\u00a0\u00a0 For myself and many others the benefits of using the Internet far exceed the possible dangers.\u00a0 We can minimize the dangers if we follow some basic security principles both for our home and office computers.<\/p>\n

Let’s start with how we connect to the Internet using a wired connection.\u00a0 Many home users and small businesses connect to the Internet through a Cable\/DSL modem.\u00a0 This type of connection is an always on connection.\u00a0 As long as our computers are powered on we are connected to the Internet and exposed to dangers.\u00a0 We increase the danger if we connect our PC directly to the Cable\/DSL modem.\u00a0 Computers connected in this way will receive a DHCP public IP address from their Internet Service Provider.\u00a0 What this means is that our PC is both visible and accessible directly from the Internet.\u00a0 This exposes us to Internet scanning, worms, and hackers.\u00a0 If we don’t have a software firewall installed then our PC can be easily compromised and our data stolen.<\/p>\n

Even though a software firewall can lessen the dangers we are exposed to when we connect in this way, I don’t recommend this method.\u00a0 A better solution would be to use a Cable\/DSL NAT router.\u00a0 The NAT router would connect directly to the Cable\/DSL modem and then our computer or computers would connect to the NAT router.\u00a0 Why is this safer?<\/p>\n

One of the key benefits of NAT (Network Address Translation) routers is that the router hides the internal IP address of your computer or computers.\u00a0 The Internet sees you as a single machine with a single IP address.\u00a0 This effectively masks the fact that one or many computers on the LAN side of the router may be sharing that one IP address.\u00a0 This not only provides security benefits but also financial ones.\u00a0 NAT enables you to have more than one computer on your home or office network while you only have to pay for one public IP address from your ISP.<\/p>\n

How does NAT work?\u00a0 When you turn on your computer you will receive an RFC1918 private IP address from your router.\u00a0 Usually with most Cable\/DSL routers this will be on an 192.168.x.x subnet.\u00a0\u00a0 This internal private IP will have to be changed or NATTED to a public address in order for you to be able to access the Internet.\u00a0 Since all computers on the LAN side of the router will share the same single IP address, the router keeps track of these outbound connections through PAT (Port Address Translation).\u00a0\u00a0 Here is what happens.\u00a0 When you make an outbound call to Google, the NAT router receives this request and changes your private IP of (192.168.1.20 for example) to a public IP address say (12.46.115.225) and a port number of 2500 making it (12.46.115.225:2500). \u00a0 A second computer on the same LAN with an IP of (192.168.1.21) also makes an outbound request at the same time.\u00a0 This computer will be assigned the same public IP but a different port number say 2501 making it (12.46.115.225:2501).\u00a0 The NAT router keeps track of these connections in a table.\u00a0 It uses this table to match return connections to the correct computer on the private LAN side of the router.<\/p>\n

This is the really good part and why the router provides added security.\u00a0 All traffic arriving at the NAT router that does not exactly match the traffic in the router’s table is discarded as unwanted traffic.\u00a0 This basically stops all unwanted inbound traffic originating from Internet scanning, worms, and hackers, protecting our computers on the private LAN side of the router from unwanted traffic from the Internet.\u00a0 So if you don’t already have a NAT router why not get one.\u00a0 The added security benefits are certainly worth the added expense.<\/p>\n

Of course for a NAT router to provide its full benefits it has to be configured correctly<\/a>.\u00a0 I will discuss this as well as the following subjects in future articles:
\nhow to secure wireless networks, how to make a server available to Internet users through port forwarding safely, what is a DMZ and what are its benefits,
\nand how can adding a second NAT router provide even greater security. Please feel free to contact me with any questions or comments.<\/p>\n

Dave
\nComputer Repair and Network Security<\/a><\/p>\n

Online Marketing<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Every computer connected to the Internet is exposed to dangers.\u00a0\u00a0 For myself and many others the benefits of using the Internet far exceed the possible dangers.\u00a0 We can minimize the dangers if we follow some basic security principles both for our home and office computers. Let’s start with how we connect to the Internet using … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Why Use a NAT Router?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[8],"class_list":["post-14","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-network-security","tag-network-security-solutions"],"yoast_head":"\nWhy Use a NAT Router? - Davco Computer Services<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/davcocomputer.com\/blog\/home-and-office-network-security-solutions\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Why Use a NAT Router? - Davco Computer Services\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Every computer connected to the Internet is exposed to dangers.\u00a0\u00a0 For myself and many others the benefits of using the Internet far exceed the possible dangers.\u00a0 We can minimize the dangers if we follow some basic security principles both for our home and office computers. 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