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reports :: netbios-security
Windows NetBIOS Security
By Brian Bothwell February 12, 2001 Many people do not realize that the default installation of many operating systems may expose them to serious security threats. The default security settings of many Microsoft Operating Systems allow full read and write access to your data. Microsoft has not made it very clear to users that when they enable file and printer sharing over their LAN, they may also be allowing anybody in the world access to the same information via the Internet. There are various ways one can secure his or her computer from being accessed by intruders. A simple and inexpensive, yet extremely secure solution would be to setup a firewall (either software or hardware) on any computer directly connected to the Internet. Software firewalls can be downloaded at no cost from various websites. With even less work, it is usually still possible to increase the security on your computer. Even with options that are built into the operation system, it is possible to at least make sure all data on your computer is protected by a password. Even better, to be completely protected, it is possible to completely disable File & Printer Sharing. Disabling File & Printer Sharing If your computer is connected to the Internet, but not connected to a LAN or VPN, File & Printer Sharing for Microsoft Networks should not even be enabled in your Networking properties. For help with disabling File & Printer Sharing on your computer, please select your Operating System below. NetBIOS Auditing Many people need to have File & Printer Sharing enabled in order to share resources over their Local Area Network or to share remote resources over the Internet via a Virtual Private Network (VPN) or some other means. What many of these people do not realize is if they share a resource on their LAN with no password, it is very likely that resource will be accessible by anyone in the world. It is very important to use passwords on shared resources as well as making sure only authorized users are able to view available resources. An extremely useful tool for making sure shared files and printers are secure is Essential NetTools. This software package by TamoSoft can scan a network within a given range of IP addresses and list computers offering NetBIOS resource sharing services. It will then take computers it finds and attempt to access the resources with a list of common username/password combinations and report the results. It is then very easy to secure your machine. It is important to remember, when doing such a scan, if you have a firewall setup, you need to perform the scan from a computer on your LAN and also from a computer outside of the firewall because many firewalls only block traffic on a specific interface. Passwords and Network Adapters Setting passwords for shared resources and specifying which network adapters are allowed access to File & Printer Sharing is very simple and requires no extra hardware or software. Settings to control this behavior are found in the Windows OS itself. Firewalls Regardless of how your shared resources are configured, it is possible to setup a firewall which will monitor network traffic and only allow users coming from known and accepted addresses to access those resources. There are hundreds of firewall packages available including both hardware and software firewalls. Although much more secure, hardware firewalls can be costly and difficult to manage. Software firewalls still work extremely well and there are many available for free or a small charge.
One very powerful software firewall is ZoneAlarm by Zone Labs. ZoneAlarm is available, free for personal and non-profit use, for download. See below for links to download various firewall applications.
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