Insider Power Techniques for Microsoft® Windows® XP

Keeping Intruders Out of Your System

If you access the Internet using a broadband—cable modem or digital subscriber line (DSL)—service, chances are that you have an "always on" connection, which means there’s a much greater chance that a malicious hacker could find your computer and have his or her way with it. You might think that with millions of people connected to the Internet at any given moment, there would be little chance of a "script kiddy" finding you in the herd. Unfortunately, one of the most common weapons in a black-hat hacker’s arsenal is a program that runs through millions of IP addresses automatically, looking for "live" connections. The problem is compounded by the fact that many cable systems and some DSL systems use IP addresses ...