|
By
Donna Schwartz Mills
c. 2000, Donna Schwartz
Mills
They
silenced Yahoo, closed shop at EBay, and put Amazon.com
on the shelf. They’ve made the FBI list of Most Wanted
Hackers... and it’s possible that they were unwittingly
abetted by many of us.
The
much-publicized hack attacks that occurred in February were
the result of a process where a Website is overwhelmed by
a massive number of requests for service.
The
perpetrators of the attack are thought to have used a program
that gave them control over entire networks of workstations.
Evidence of this was found on computers at UCLA, Stanford
and UC-Santa Barbara.
This
does not indicate that the Website saboteurs were California
students, merely that they were able to gain access to computers
at these universities, which is surprisingly easy to do.
Software
developer (and InfoWorld editor) Steve Gibson was shocked
when he found out how easy it is for others to access most
desktop PC’s. As a public service, Gibson has created
ShieldsUp, a free online utility that now takes up a big
chunk of his Gibson Research Corporation Website.
According
to Gibson, one reason Windows PCs are especially vulnerable
to tampering is that the Windows operating system installs
with all its networking options turned on by default. If
your Windows PC is always on and has a perpetual Internet
connection (via a network, DSL or cable modem), it could
be a sitting duck for mischief makers who scan for open
ports through your IP address and can gain access to all
kinds of personal information, including what’s on
your hard drive.
There
are steps you can take to “deadbolt” your system
from cyber-intruders:
1.
Add a password to your computer. Most Windows users with
stand-alone machines don’t bother to password-protect
their systems. However, by not doing so, anyone on the same
network (i.e., connected to you via the Internet!) can share
your computer’s resources.
2.
If you are not on a local area network, turn off networking
options like file and printer sharing. You don’t need
these features to connect to the Internet and they are making
it easier for others to connect to you.
3.
If you enjoy continuous Internet connection via DSL or cable
modem, you should install a firewall — software that
will screen your Internet traffic and block out unauthorized
intrusions. ZoneAlarm (which Gibson uses) is available free
to individual users at http://www.zonelabs.com.
Macintosh users may wish to try NetBarrier, which is priced
at $79.95 and can be downloaded at http://www.securemac.com.
|
