Shields Up - Test Your System

This morning Don Naphen made a comment to one of the articles I had written in which he had mentioned Shields Up and asking if I had mentioned this before to my readers?  I believe I may have mentioned this software before, but in case I didn’t, here it is.

Steve Gibson at Gibson Research  Corporation has been provding a free service called Shields Up for many years. I have not only used the testing procedure on my personal computers, but also on client machines as well. Basically what Shield Ups does is scan your system for open ports and provides you wilth a report showing if your system is vulnerable to attack. The scanning process takes only a few minutes and is easy to do. His site also provides information on how to close any ports as well.

On his site he states:

The Internet is incredibly powerful because it allows YOU to connect to “Internet Resources” located anywhere in the world. When you “browse the web” your web browser is connecting to web servers running on other people’s machines and reading HTML files that have been prepared for you. But what you haven’t been told is that this “Internet connectivity” is entirely reciprocal! As easily and effortlessly as you’re able to connect to any other server on the Internet, anyone else’s computer can connect to yours! It’s true. I created this web site to demonstrate exactly this fact, to explain it, and to help you deal with the consequences.

The problem is that file and printer sharing services function by turning any PC wanting to share its files into a file and printer server. When this trusting and sharing computer is connected to a network, this “service” is naturally extended and made available to the all the other computers which are also connected to the network. But when that network is THE INTERNET, suddenly your computer is literally offering its files to every other computer in the world!

Most of us now connect to the Internet via a broadband connection. It is recommended that you have a firewall between your system and the Internet. There are two kinds of firewalls. Software related such as the built in firewall that XP provides and hardware related such as a router that blocks attacks. It is best to have both in place.

To test your system go to the Shields Up site located here.

Thanks Don for the reminder.

Comments welcome.

[tags] gibson, shields up, network, test, [/tags]