Forget the cable company firewall. Whatever they have (or don't have) is a joke at best. You need to get something for yourself.

An intrusion log is something you will get with your firewall. It is a log that captures every attempt made to access your computer. You will see more activity than you would have believed possible. It seems that people write programs to have their computers continuously check IP addresses and the various ports available on PCs. If they find something that answers, they then mount an active attempt to gain access.

I have sat and watched the log file and seen another computer try to access every port available on my computer. It is scary to realize how vulnerable you were before you protected your machine.

Mike