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Whereas one job of a personal firewall is to block potentially malicious inbound connections to your machine, another is to block potentially malicious outbound connections. For example, if some malware does find its way onto your system and then it attempts to “phone home” with whatever sensitive data it may have found, a good personal firewall should stop stop most outbound communications dead in their tracks until the end-user explicitly allows it (one problem with such conditional blocking is that end-users are rarely presented with enough information on which to base a decision).

An old theme with the personal firewall that Microsoft offered for Windows Windows XP (Service Pack 2) is how it was pretty useless given the way it only offered inbound blocking. In fact, back when that firewall first came out, I pointed out how it was worse than having no firewall at all. With no firewall, at least you know you have no firewall. But, with a firewall that doesn’t work, you’re led into having a false sense of security. 

So, while Microsoft’s anemic firewalls are an old them, you’d think the problem would have been corrected in Microsoft’s Windows Vista. According to CNET’s Robert Vamosi, perhaps you should think again. Writes Vamosi:

In Windows Vista, Microsoft says its new Windows Firewall is now two-way, that it adds outbound protection, but a closer look reveals that this is more deceptive marketing spin. With Windows Vista what you get turns out to be a half-cocked firewall that’s hardly worth the upgrade.

Vamosi goes onto describe how Vista’s personal firewall has the blocking and tackling of outbound connections backwards.

With most personal firewalls (and network firewalls), an outbound connection is only allowed when the firewall wall has been programmed with a rule that allows it. That’s good. From the moment such a firewall is installed, nothing is allowed until a user (or network administrator) says its allowed. The first time after most personal firewalls are installed, those firewalls present users with a rules wizard each time an application on their PC tries to connect to the Internet. In most cases, the wizard makes it pretty easy for users to make one of  four choices:

 Full story & source: ZDNet