Is McAfee SecurityCenter/Firewall Software Providing Complete Security for Your Computer?

McAfee SecurityCenter Firewall is one of the most popular security software installed on millions of Internet connected computers worldwide. “McAfee claims that if you have installed McAfee SecurityCentre with anti-virus and anti-spyware and Firewall version 9.3 then you always have the most current security to combat the ever-evolving threats on the Internet for the duration of the subscription”. In this paper, we present our findings regarding the effectiveness of McAfee SecurityCentre software against one of the most popular Distributed Denial Of Service (DDoS) attack, namely Ping-flood attack on the computer which has McAfee SecurityCentre installed. The McAfee SecurityCentre software has an in built firewall which can be activated to control and filter the Inbound/Outbound traffic. It can also block the Ping Requests in order to stop or subside the Ping based DDoS Attacks. To test the McAfee Security Centre software, we created the Ping traffic in the controlled lab environment of Networking Research Lab here at The University of Texas-Pan American. It was found that the McAfee Firewall software itself was incurring DoS (Denial of Service) by completely exhausting the available memory resources during its operation of stopping the external Ping Attack.