Finally, a Trojan horse is a program that works somewhat like a virus,
except that its specific purpose is to create vulnerabilities in your computer
that can subsequently be exploited by a hacker or robot. For
example, a program might open a port on your computer (see
Appendix B) and then communicate with a remote system to announce
its presence.
A deliberate attack by a person sitting at your computer
A person who sits down at your computer can easily gain access to sensitive
information, including your documents, email, and even various
passwords stored by your web browser. An intruder can be anyone,
from the jerk who has just stolen your laptop, to a coworker casually
walking by your unattended desk, to your eight-year-old niece. Naturally,
it??™s up to you to determine the actual likelihood of such a threat
and to take the appropriate measures (such as password-protecting your
screen saver, or hiding your keyboard in the closet). Several examples
are discussed in Chapter 8.
Defending your computer (and your network) against these attacks essentially
involves fixing the vulnerabilities they exploit.
Close Vista??™s Backdoors
Windows Vista includes several features that will enable you to implement a
reasonable level of security without purchasing additional software or hardware.
Unfortunately, few of these features are in effect by default.
414 | Chapter 7: Networking and Internet
The following steps will help you close some of these ???backdoors???:
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