Excuse me, your ports are showing.

Internet security is something that is all too often neglected by home users. With the explosion in broadband people increasingly leave their computers connected to the Internet for days at a time. This is one of the big benefits of broadband, but

Internet security is something that is all too often neglected by home users. With the explosion in broadband people increasingly leave their computers connected to the Internet for days at a time. This is one of the big benefits of broadband, but opens up a security hole that is worrying, especially if you are running File and Print Sharing.
Sharesniffer is a new program that is being marketed as a file sharing solution similar to Napster, but in reality it is just a hacking program with a fancy front end. The lovely people at Sharesniffer justify their program in the following way; 'Right now - this instant - there are tens of thousands of computers worldwide that are sharing files deliberately with the Internet-requiring no password and no special software other than the Microsoft Windows operating system.'
The reality cannot be further from the truth. Sharesniffer is designed to exploit a common hole that is often unknowingly left open on some computers. A lot of people who run home networks, or attend LANs, activate File and Print Sharing without realising that this leaves their computers wide open to incursion via the Internet. Rather than the Napster model, in which a user has to run the Napster client for people to be able to access shared files, ShareSniffer is designed to exploit the File and Print Sharing hole without the end users knowledge.
The solution to this is to make sure File and Print Sharing is disabled or password protected. The next level is to install a firewall on your PC. The most commonly used security applications are ZoneAlarm from Zone Labs and BlackICE Defender from Network Ice, which come highly recommended.