RE: Help, some one's hacked into my home computer

From: Michael J. Ballard (mjballardat_private)
Date: Sun Jan 02 2000 - 19:46:45 PST

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    Okay....first of all, you don't need to be running a web server to provide
    access to your file system. All someone needs to do is run a port scan to
    find that you are doing NetBIOS file sharing on an interface with a legal IP
    address. Then it is just a matter of adding your IP address and machine name
    to the LMHOSTS file on their PC and using "net use G:
    \\machinename\sharename" to map a drive directly to your file system.
    
    You need to think about using a firewall device or proxy server between your
    PCs and the DSL modem that does NAT (address translation) to prevent the IP
    address of your PC from being seen by the outside world. Netwatch, BlackIce
    and the likes are nice for reporting attacks, but it is often too late at
    that point. With read/write access to your shares, someone could have easily
    wiped out every file on your PC. Consider yourself lucky!
    
    Next, Findfast is an indexing utility used by MS Office. It is installed by
    default runs at scheduled intervals to take inventory of your drives. The
    FFASTUN.* you referred to is normal. I usually take findfast out of the
    startup folder whenever I install Office, because it slows your PC down
    considerably every time it runs.
    
    Last but not least, you think about using a more robust OS besides Windows
    98 if you plan to share files. Windows NT Workstation, Windows 2000, OS/2
    Warp, Linux, etc. all allow you to set user-based security on your file
    system. Windows 95 and 98 only give you the option of read-only or
    read/write and anyone can access them.
    
    Just my $.02 worth,
    
    Mike
    
    
     ____________________________________
    | Michael J. Ballard                 |
    | Master CNE, MCSE, CCNA, ACP        |
    | Enterprise Network Engineer        |
    | Inacom Information Systems         |
    | mballard@inacom-ar.com             |
    |____________________________________|
    
    
    
    -----Original Message-----
    From: owner-firewall-wizardsat_private
    [mailto:owner-firewall-wizardsat_private]On Behalf Of Richard
    Toscano
    Sent: Sunday, January 02, 2000 3:03 PM
    To: firewall-wizardsat_private
    Subject: Re: Help, some one's hacked into my home computer
    
    
    Actually, someone did hack my system, and used FINDFAST to scan for
    files.  They had open a .MPG movie
    I had made from my digital camera.   Here's my setup:  Win98SE with
    internet sharing enabled.  I have a local
    net and am trying to share the DSL connection amongst my various
    machines.  The DSL modem has a fixed IP
    and is always connected.  The intruder came in to the host machine and
    ran FINDFAST and was accessing
    the MPG.  I caught all this a day later.  I guess their connection got
    hung.  I used NETWATCH to discover
    the connection, and what files they were looking at.
    
    Seeing this, I looked over my system and found FFASTUN.* in both root
    directories of my C and D drive.
    All files had the same time/date stamp when the intrusion occured.  This
    matched the connection time reported
    by NETWATCH.
    
    So, Windows 98 SE with internet sharing is allowing people to hack into
    systems from the outside.  I don't
    have a web server running, so I'm not sure what services they were using
    to access my file system.  I did have
    the C and D drives setup with full read/write shares!  Ack, not again!
    
    ...Doug
    



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