Seth,
Concerning paranoia, I think that it is not only reasonable, but necessary
to protect your home PC or network with some sort of firewall (or NAT
server) if you are also one of those people who has an "always on"
connection and who accesses their corporate network from home.
I would agree that a hacker would not find very much of interest on the
typical home PC, but might find it more entertaining to piggy back from
there right past the corporate firewall and into the internal resources of
where you work.
Angus.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Seth Kneller" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Friday, May 04, 2001 1:12 PM
Subject: RE: WinVNC and Norton Personal Firewall 2001
> Mickey Ferguson writes:
> >I was just wondering if any virus generators, etc., might know about this
> >port and try to gain access into my PC that way. Is that a security
risk?
> >After all, I do have a workaround where I disable NPF, connect to VNC,
and
> >then immediately re-enable NPF. That leaves me unprotected for maybe ten
> >seconds maximum. Maybe I should leave well enough alone?
>
> This is very unlikely. I have never heard of a virus connecting to a port,
> to spread itself or anything; and to be perfectly honest this is a
> ridiculous notion, since it couldn't do anything. Very few daemons
(programs
> running in the background (in windows speak TSR's - Terminate and Stay
> Resident)) which accept connections allow direct access to the machine,
and
> most ask for a password up front.
>
> Your workaround sounds complex to me, surely you would need to be in front
> of the PC to disable NPF, which is what VNC is there to 'prevent'. From
what
> Angus Macleod says NPF would appear to work like ZoneAlarm and its just a
> case of telling NPF that you want VNC to access the Internet and act as a
> server.
>
> Why o' Why are there so many paranoid people out there, the average Joe on
> the street is unlikely to be the subject of cracker/hacker attack unless
he
> upsets someone or runs a big server that lots of people know about.
> Cracking/Hacking is only fun if there is a publicity factor or you want to
> enact revenge on someone. NPF can probably mask the fact that the VNC port
> is open to protect from port scanners, however I tend to accept that this
is
> just something that 'happens' on the Internet, because there is very
little
> I can do about it, apart from disabling non-essential services.
>
> Seth
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