Zone doesn't work well with unusual applications and, if you run ZoneAlarm Pro in a mission-critical environment, it will not hold up under certain applets and hacking tools. But, after some initial network interruptions, the SOHO firewall has proved strong enough to stand up to common exploits launched at individual computers, including port scans that go after vulnerable services and Trojan horses such as Back Orifice. The security needed by a businessperson is different than that of network architects. The ability to discriminate between types of sessions is especially important when dealing with home users' SOHO machines. The employee-owned computer is a big issue for many companies today.
Most SOHO firewalls offer some such distinctions.
The CyberArmor SOHO firewall suite from InfoExpress of Los Altos, Calif., for instance, is praised by industry analysts for its ability to discriminate between home use, inbound connectivity to the corporate LAN and outbound connectivity from inside the LAN to the Internet. That ability is one reason Montreal-based Bell Canada International is rolling out InfoExpress on 4,000 portable computers and planning 33,000 installations on internal machines by the end of 2001. InfoExpress' SOHO firewall allows Bell Canada to set different parameters depending on what mode the user is in. For example, as soon as the user activates his or her VPN client, the software changes from the standard Internet filter set to a predetermined VPN filter set. When the VPN is turned off, the SOHO firewall automatically reverts to Internet mode.