Setting the Table

The only way to make your system completely safe from attack is never to connect to the Internet. Whenever you open the door to go out, you open the door for a potential hacker to get it. Some users have the mistaken belief that intruders only attack high-profile sites and would not be interested in a personal home workstation. The truth is that every single computer on the Internet is in danger of attack – even computers with dial-up connections. In many cases, these attacks are blind, brute force attacks, where the attacker tries a long list of known security holes.