I found a site today that I think you’ll find useful: Gibson Research Corporation. I’ve often wondered how vulnerable my computer might be when connected to the internet. I usually use my secured wireless connection at home and the open (college) wireless network at work. I’ve heard all of the scary talk about how hackers are monitoring the wireless network and sniffing ports to find a way to break into my computer. I have to wonder: is my computer wide open for attack?
The website linked above provides a tool called ‘Shields Up’ (you’ll have to scroll down the page to find it) which will probe your computer from the internet to see if it has certain known vulnerabilities. I was curious and checked on mine and found my little iBook to be reasonably secure as far as I can tell. There was one thing that Shields Up flagged, but I don’t think it’s a very big deal.
All in all, I believe that most macs running OS X are fairly secure and most Windows XP computers are probably in pretty good shape, too, if the user is up to date on patches and has the firewall configured properly. I have no connection with the above page, but I thought the link might be something you would want to check out if you’re wondering how well your firewall is protecting your computer.
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i went to said website and entered shilds up got a great result. Then i as a nosey parker that i am turned OFF all security’s I have running and ran the test again
I got the same result’s … Why would that have happend Hmm! i wonder
Hi Junior. LOL. I never bothered to check it out that way. Maybe I should have… Thanks for the heads up!