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New Windows Attack Can Disable Firewall

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the he-shoots-he-scores dept.

BobB writes to tell us NetworkWorld is reporting that new code released on Sunday could allow a fully patched Windows XP PC's personal firewall to be disabled via a malicious data packet. The exploit depends on the use of Microsoft's Internet Connection Service. From the article: "The attacker could send a malicious data packet to another PC using ICS that would cause the service to terminate. Because this service is connected to the Windows firewall, this packet would also cause the firewall to stop working, said Tyler Reguly, a research engineer at nCircle Network Security Inc."

2 of 273 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Obvious by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    Funny how you seemingly want performance and suggest a router. I've bought at the VERY LEAST 2 dozen routers (I'd say closer to 3) in the 2 or 3 last years. Linksys (the "good" WRT54G), D-Link, Neatgear, etc.

    Every single one of them failed on me with NO exception. Not one survived. They just CANNOT handle today's fast connections. Put bt+ed2k thru it, it'll overheat in no time at all. Even if you open the case, put some nice heat sinks and fans, it will STILL die! They're inexpensive, but they're also garbage for the most part. They just can't handle it. (yes, I've tried various firmwares, versions, RMA'ed several, etc)

    And the switch chips in most are a bad joke at best. Put a few GBs thru them (god forbid someone make use of them eh?) and they overheat and reset (your connection drops, then reappears, drops again, etc).

    I've totally given up on them about a year ago, and with I had NEVER bothered. It's cost me a few hundred $ in router trash that went straight to the garbage. Since then I've been running a firewall (and doing NAT) on a box that's always on anyways (runs a few server processes, P2P apps and things like that), and it's millions of times better than any home/SOHO router's EVER going to be. Those overhyped POS'es are good if you're into low bandwidth stuff like checking email and surfing the web, but that's about it.

    Friends don't let friends buy routers.

  2. Re:Obvious by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    Or maybe you're just too stupid to even exist let alone use a computer since you don't know how to properly set up a router.