Netopia 4541 - Manual (Page 145)

Security 11-1
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The Netopia 4541/4542 provides a number of security features to help protect its configuration screens and
your local network from unauthorized access. Although these features are optional, it is strongly recommended
that you use them.
This section covers the following topics:
■ “Suggested security measures” on page 11-1
■ “User accounts” on page 11-1
■ “Telnet access” on page 11-3
■ “About filters and filter sets” on page 11-4
■ “Working with IP filters and filter sets” on page 11-12
■ “Firewall tutorial” on page 11-20
Suggested security measures
In addition to setting up user accounts, Telnet access, and filters (all of which are covered later in this chapter),
there are other actions you can take to make the Netopia 4541/4542 and your network more secure:
■ Change the SNMP community strings (or passwords). The default community strings are universal and
could easily be known to a potential intruder.
■ Set the answer profile so it must match incoming calls to a connection profile.
■ Leave the Enable Dial-in Console Access option set to No.
■ When using AURP, accept connections only from configured par tners.
■ Configure the Netopia 4541/4542 through the serial console por t to ensure that your communications
cannot be intercepted.
User accounts
When you first set up and configure the Netopia 4541/4542, no passwords are required to access the
configuration screens. Anyone could tamper with the router’s configuration by simply connecting it to a console.
However, by adding user accounts, you can protect the most sensitive screens from unauthorized access. User
accounts are composed of name/password combinations that can be given to authorized users.
Caution!
You are strongly encouraged to add protection to the configuration screens. Unprotected screens could allow an
unauthorized user to compromise the operation of your entire network.