Best way to filter out IP addresses with hardware..?

[KingNeil1]

I am looking to filter out IP addresses using hardware external to the computer itself.

I have decided that using Windows' system for filtering IPs/hosts is no good, because if someone hacked the computer itself, then they could just alter all of that anyway.

So it needs to be some external device, that can't be hacked.

The thing is, I am in a place where other people use the same router as me. So, using any built-in IP address filtering on the router is no good.

It needs to be some kind of hardware device that is placed between my computer, and the router.

It would have the ability to

1. Filter out all IP addresses except certain ones
2. Or, just filter out certain IP addresses

What is your recommendation for this...?

 

[setishock]

If you buy prebuilt firewall boxes say from TP-Link or Cisco, they are outrageously costly. However...
As discussed in another thread about what to do with a semiretired computer, it was suggested to slap in a couple of cheap NICs and load this software. www.ipfire.org - Home

It's only as complicated as you make it.

 

[root]

You've got a few choices really. - and it'll depend on the "scale" that you want to do things on.

(so a big big business will need big big hosting tin).
a smaller company may be ok with and older server running something like smoothwall (a free linux firewall solution that builds a hardware/server based firewall appliance.)

a home user might just get an old cable router (the kind where the external port is a network cable) and just add the "internet" port of a home router to the home side of their cable modem, and the "network" side to their machine - i.e add a hardware firewall.

so lets say
home firewall reused = £0 - £50 (free if you have an old one laying about)
server (£0 - £10k) free if you have an old one laying about.
a "real firewall" (e.g. Cisco ASA) ~£2k and up to astonishingly high levels depending on the features that you want.

 

[KingNeil1]

Hi, it's the original poster here.

So, how would you access this router...? Would it have a touch screen or something on it, or would I have to access it through another computer..?

Because remember, the original issue is that if the Windows computer itself is hacked, then obviously that creates issues.

The goal is to have a hardware device that is totally independent from any other computer on the network, other than, of course, routing data to it.

Also, does anyone have any reports of routers themselves being hacked, or are they generally considered to be secure..?

 

[BK_123]

If you buy prebuilt firewall boxes say from TP-Link or Cisco, they are outrageously costly. However...
As discussed in another thread about what to do with a semiretired computer, it was suggested to slap in a couple of cheap NICs and load this software. www.ipfire.org - Home

It's only as complicated as you make it.

Nabbing an ole machine and chucking IPFire on it would be the way to go and it isn't very hard to configure IPFire Installation Guide [wiki.ipfire.org].

Hi, it's the original poster here.

So, how would you access this router...? Would it have a touch screen or something on it, or would I have to access it through another computer..?

Because remember, the original issue is that if the Windows computer itself is hacked, then obviously that creates issues.

The goal is to have a hardware device that is totally independent from any other computer on the network, other than, of course, routing data to it.

Also, does anyone have any reports of routers themselves being hacked, or are they generally considered to be secure..?

You would access the router on another computer.