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Hacker Lingo

HACKER LINGO IS PHREAKY

Phreaks, spoofers and spammers want to invade your home computer, and the tricks of their trade include airsnarfs, wabbits and fork bombs.
Ref. https://deseretnews.com/dn/view/1%2C1249%2C...00693%2C00.html

Lingo Hacker

Since I work at IBM, I'll post here the 10 tips for Online security that is posted on the same website where their hacker dictionary was posted. The tips are good for anyone who has an internet connection.

1. Make sure your computer has antivirus software, and ALWAYS keep it up to date.
2. Protect your home computer network.
3. Protect your laptop with a firewall.
4. Using a wireless device? The device should use the WPA or WPA2 Wi-Fi Protected Access protocol.
5. Don't respond to unsolicited e-mail.
6. Use strong passwords.
7. Don't take ANY of your online connections for granted. Even Instant Messaging can open the door for malicious attacks.
8. Don't be fooled by spoofers.
9. Before giving out your financial or account information at any Web site, look for a third-party privacy seal to ensure that the transaction is secure.
10. Back up your files!

Hacker Lingo Gaming Video & Issues Computer

Referring to Tip #2: How would you go about protecting a home network? My roommates and I have a Linksys router set up, hosting a total of five computers. I have a software firewall (TrendMicro) on my machine, but I'm not sure what other steps can be taken to further heighten security.

Lingo Hacker

Although they may provide an extra measure of protection, software firewalls are generally redundant if a hardware firewall is already installed. If a hacker can make it past your hardware firewall, its is unlikely a software firewall will be much of a challenge either.

As far as for how firewalls work, some computer networking basics. All information on an IP network (which covers almost everything) goes from a specific IP address and port to a specific IP address and port. A firewall works by preventing access to your IP address on the ports.
If you run a server on your computer, you need to make a hole in the firewall. Any holes that you have will make your network that much less secure, so before running any server, you must weigh the pros against the cons. The hole is made so that the general world can access your IP address on that specific port, enabling them to access the server.

The primary difference between hardware firewalls, and some software firewalls, is that software firewalls can receive automatic updates of known malicious IP addresses, and will then block any data on any port coming from a bad IP address. Some software firewalls will also filter all outgoing information, to check for known trojan horses and spyware.

Beyond that, there is not a whole lot to do, unless you suspect that you are under attack. If you know that your network has been compromised, the best thing to do is immediately disconnect access from the network until the breach has been secured. This is, of course, only for home users who do not run mission-critical network applications. If you suspect that you may be compromised, a "packet sniffer" will allow you to inspect each packet coming in to or going out from your computer.

One last bit of security info. If you have the option on your hardware firewall configuration, ensure that your router will not respond to ping requests. This sets up a "black hole" firewall, making it appear to hackers that your computer does not exist. On standard configurations, routers will respond to ping requests, and a hacker doing a port scan will receive information on what ports are open and what ports are closed, allowing them to attempt to worm through the closed ports and get into something useful. A black hole will simply not respond to a ping request or port scan, making it appear that nothing is there.

Lingo Hacker

I was under the impression that a router was a hardware firewall of sorts, though it probably is minimal as far as protection goes--just from what I've heard.

I'll have to take a look at the ping requests thing, see what the manual has to say about my version of the Linksys router. I'm pretty suave with most of the router settings--I can set up PASV mode and port-forwarding for an FTP relatively easy and can manage opening ports when I need to. So, I'll take a look for what you suggested.

Thanks again. If you have any other information, definately pass it along--especially if it deals with Linksys.

Hacker Lingo

Yes, a router (at least home versions) is a hardware firewall. However, "routing" and "firewalling" are two distinct acts. Enterprise routers (the kind used for the Internet backbone) do not use firewalls, and (I may be mistaken) there are also enterprise firewalls that do not actually function as routers.