Well, thanks to lax security by vendors and network administrators, not to mention an underground network of devious and talented souls churning out user-friendly cracking tools, it's never been easier. The latest such tool to hit the Internet is called SMBRelay, . . .
Well, thanks to lax security by vendors and network administrators, not to mention an underground network of devious and talented souls churning out user-friendly cracking tools, it's never been easier. The latest such tool to hit the Internet is called SMBRelay, and it exploits a well-known flaw in Microsoft Corp.'s Windows NT and Windows 2000 software that enables an attacker to hijack NetBIOS connections.

Gaining unauthorized access to networks used to be a game that only a small handful of gifted crackers with a lot of time on their hands could play. They would laboriously comb the Internet for vulnerable machines, poke and prod until they found a way in, and then execute whatever attack they had in mind.

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