Home PCs are coming under increasing threat from intruders, and those on broadband connections are the most vulnerable, according to CERT The last three months have seen a significant rise in so-called intruder attacks directed at home users, . . .
Home PCs are coming under increasing threat from intruders, and those on broadband connections are the most vulnerable, according to CERT The last three months have seen a significant rise in so-called intruder attacks directed at home users, according to the latest quarterly report from the US-based CERT Coordination Centre.

Intruder attacks are defined as anything from packet sniffers, which capture data from plain text email and other information as they travel over the network, to email viruses -- not just hacking attacks.

PCs running Windows are particularly vulnerable. Unprotected Windows networking shares are singled out as one weakness often found in home PCs, allowing hackers to place tools on large numbers of Windows-based computers attached to the Internet. Windows is also singled out for its option to "Hide file extensions for known file types", which is enabled by default, making it difficult for many people to spot extensions such as .vbs on files. Many email viruses -- such as Love Letter -- arrive as Visual Basic files with .vbs extensions.

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