One of the main reasons to set up a workgroup is to
share files and printers with other computers. But it??™s wise to share only
those folders that need to be shared, and disable sharing for all others.
A feature called Simple File Sharing, which might allow anyone, anywhere,
to access your personal files without your knowledge, is turned
on by default. In Control Panel, open Folder Options, choose the View
tab, and turn off the Use Sharing Wizard (Recommended) option. See
Chapter 8 for details on sharing resources and protecting your shared
resources.
UPnP bad. Another feature, called Universal Plug-and-Play (UPnP), can
open additional vulnerabilities on your system. UPnP could more aptly
be called Network Plug and Play, since it only deals with network
devices. UPnP is a collection of standards that allow such devices to
announce their presence to UPnP servers on your network, much in the
same way as your PnP sound card announces its presence to Windows
when you boot your system.
Windows supports UPnP out of the box, which, on the surface, sounds
like a good idea. However, UPnP is a service that most users don??™t need,
and unless you specifically need to connect to a UPnP device on your
network, you should disable UPnP on your system immediately. Leaving
a service like UPnP running unnecessarily exposes your system to
several security threats.
To disable UPnP, open the Services window (services.msc). Find the
SSDPDiscovery Service in the list and double-click it.
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