Get hackers out of your home

By Andy Walker

The arrival of broadband Internet access has opened up a new playground for hackers: home computers.

“There is software available on the Net that makes it easy for hackers to probe thousands of hosts and, if file sharing is on, they will find you and compromise you,” said X-Force director Chris Rouland.

Xforce is a team of security experts that research the latest technology security vulnerabilities and threats for Atlanta-based Internet Security Systems.

The threat is not new, but with consumer adoption of always-on connection technologies, more home computers are potential targets.

Anyone who connects a personal computer to the Internet is at risk, but traditional modems aren’t connected long enough for a hacker to weasel onto a machine remotely.

The always-connected nature of the new high-speed connections gives a hacker more time to detect the computer and exploit it. Services that cause this new vulnerability include connection via cable modem service and DSL, or Digital Subscriber Line connections.

Hackers target computers by scanning for Internet Protocol addresses across the Internet. An IP address is a unique identifier, like a phone number for a computer. Computers connected via traditional modem have their IP address assigned to them by their Internet service provider (ISP). This number changes each time they connect. The numbers for cable modem IP addresses don’t.

“Cable modem service is the most vulnerable technology because their users’ IP address is fixed. A hacker can toy with your computer at two in morning, and if he wants, he can come back tomorrow because the IP doesn’t change,” said Darren Popham, vice-president, Signal 9, a Kanata, Ontario security software maker.

Home users with a DSL service are less vulnerable than cable modem users. A DSL-connected computer is assigned an IP address for each session and retains that address until the computer is rebooted or until the connection is dropped and re-established through a software command. One caveat: corporate DSL users are as vulnerable as cable modem users because they, too, have fixed IP addresses.

In the United States, DSL providers offer both dynamic and fixed IP addressing to home users.

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