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Personal Computer Security
Testing Youir Computer's Vulnerability
There are threats to your computer's online security beyond virus and worm attacks. While your unprotected computer is online it is accessible to just about anyone with another computer. Once you connect to your Internet Service Provider (ISP) your computer is given a unique to address during your connection. That address is expressed numerically as your "IP" address. Since the address is numerical, it's quite easy for hackers to go through sequential lists of numerical addresses looking for computers that are online and accessible. Once they find a computer that is online and accessible, there's virtually no end to the amount of destruction that can be wrought from a remote location. It could be something as benign as watching what you're doing, or could take the form of looking into your address books and copying all your E-mail addresses, or they can plant a virus or Trojan Horse in your computer, or worse. It is actually possible for these hackers to access your hard drive and steal pass words, credit card numbers, and other personal information that might be stored on your computer. These attacks are growing in number all the time, and as more people isolate their computers from the internet so they cannot be attacked, those who do not protect themselves are even more vulnerable.
This is particularly important information now with so many people using cable modems and making use of the current offers that lower the initial costs for DSL connections and other sorts of fast Internet access. While these types of connections can be very fast they both have the potential of leaving you even more open to the above-mentioned types of attacks. DSL connections leave you vulnerable because your computer is connected 24 hours a day. Although DSL claims that it changes the IP address occasionally, it does not change the fact that the computer is always online. Cable modems are vulnerable for the very same reason, but their actual signal transmission is vulnerable in a different way, and one for which this article has no solution. It has been shown that the downstream signal from your computer on a cable modem can be read on the cable by other users that employ special equipment or software.
What ever form the intrusion takes, I am sure you agree with me that the data and information in your computer is your business and what you're doing with it is your business as well, and anything you can do to prevent someone or something from gaining access to your computer and the information stored within would be a good thing.
The solution is not to be paranoid but to be prepared. This article is concerned with checking your computer to see what level of protection you will are currently afforded. In the next article you will find a solution to the problems that may have been exposed here. To begin, you will want to go to the GRC Corporation website. This website has been around for some time now, and Steve Gibson, the site's owner, has been helping folks keep their computer safe on the Internet for many years.
For now, click on the "Shields Up" logo on the main page. On the page that comes up http://www.grc.com/default.htm you will find links to lots of really great information about your computer's security that will take even a graduate of Evelyn Wood quite some time to go through, but for now, scroll down and find the link to the "Shields UP" page.
On that page you will see that your IP address has been identified and there is an explination of that. Click the "proceed" button to get to...
...and you will be presented with the ability to test your computer in a few different ways. In the box above you see the first three that we are most concerned with for the purposes of this article.
Click the first button to test Hopefully your computer will return the same results as I received above. You want your computer to be invisible or unreachable. This test specifically checks the computers vulnerability to being used as a server while connected on the Internet. Don't spaz out if it states that you computer is vulnerable in some way. I have solutions for you.
This second test looks for openings in the Internet Common Ports. Here, my computer was reported by the test as having a high level of security. The test said, "From the standpoint of the passing probes of any hacker, this machine does not exist on the Internet." That's a good thing.
Click on the "All Service Ports" (the third) button and your computer's first 1056 Internet service prots will be checked for vulnerability. The results might look like this:
If all the squares are green, your computer has a high level of protection. If they are not, then we need to get to work soon.
On the first page where we began the tests there is also a link for "Leaktest." This very simple test looks for vulnerabilities in outbound traffic through your Internet connection. The instructions are fairly easy to follow. You download a small application "Leaktest.exe" and run it on your computer. It simlates a trojan horse or worm that would send information from your computer out to another computer.
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