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Ive got my network, router (WAP54G with Tomato), wireless, etc. fairly well locked down. My wireless uses WPA2 w/AES encryption and MAC filtering, which is probably not infallible but secure enough to keep 99% of the random war drivers, and clueless hijacker's out. The wireless router itself sits outside IPTables firewall on Slackware, which is as secure as I could possibly make it within given my knowledge of the platform. I am using both inbound and outbound filtering, and I have spent a great deal of time researching possible attack routes and locking it down.
Anyhow, to get to the point; I am considering taking the linux box out of the picture due to power concerns and want to look more into securing my PC. However, I have seldom paid much attention to that particular aspect of my environment beyond the obligatory virus protection, spyware protection, etc. Thus far I have not had much of a problem that I was aware of. I use Vista Ultimate with SP1 and I use Firefox for my browser, I keep the windows firewall on constantly and am generally very careful what I do. I have yet to experience any viruses, trojans, hacks, or any other noticeable interruptions. But Im not just confident that I have everything I need keep my PC safe, and keep tabs on the security of my box.
So my question for you all is, what major steps can be taking to keep Vista locked down beyond the windows firewall and the other things I mentioned? Im thinking more along the lines of intrusion prevention and real time monitoring. I have found a few utilities for monitoring and alerting on connections to certain ports and such, but I really want to take it a step further than that. Im trying to find a utility or utilities that will alert on much more, such as; system file changes, un-inititated connection attempts, tracking registry changes, and anything else that might be useful. For my own piece of mind I just want to be more informed about what is going on in my machine. I would definately like to shy away from the Norton-esque suites that bring the computer to its knees to lock it down. Im looking more for some lightweight open source or professional quality tools, if possible.
Oddly enough these types of things seem much easier, even trivial to accomplish in linux. But for some reason seem to be intentionally obscured in Windows. In my, and I'm sure in many reasonably knowledgeable windows users case, ignorance is NOT bliss.
Anyhow, to get to the point; I am considering taking the linux box out of the picture due to power concerns and want to look more into securing my PC. However, I have seldom paid much attention to that particular aspect of my environment beyond the obligatory virus protection, spyware protection, etc. Thus far I have not had much of a problem that I was aware of. I use Vista Ultimate with SP1 and I use Firefox for my browser, I keep the windows firewall on constantly and am generally very careful what I do. I have yet to experience any viruses, trojans, hacks, or any other noticeable interruptions. But Im not just confident that I have everything I need keep my PC safe, and keep tabs on the security of my box.
So my question for you all is, what major steps can be taking to keep Vista locked down beyond the windows firewall and the other things I mentioned? Im thinking more along the lines of intrusion prevention and real time monitoring. I have found a few utilities for monitoring and alerting on connections to certain ports and such, but I really want to take it a step further than that. Im trying to find a utility or utilities that will alert on much more, such as; system file changes, un-inititated connection attempts, tracking registry changes, and anything else that might be useful. For my own piece of mind I just want to be more informed about what is going on in my machine. I would definately like to shy away from the Norton-esque suites that bring the computer to its knees to lock it down. Im looking more for some lightweight open source or professional quality tools, if possible.
Oddly enough these types of things seem much easier, even trivial to accomplish in linux. But for some reason seem to be intentionally obscured in Windows. In my, and I'm sure in many reasonably knowledgeable windows users case, ignorance is NOT bliss.