I was thinking (don't do it often) about Hot Tropical Babes post about the guy "hacking" her tgsw. There was some questions about it since she hosted the galleries on a freehost and was wondering how someone would find out where she was actually running the program from.
My thinking is that a lot of us are opening yourselves/computers to hackers attention. Since a lot of us (of course) are using our computers in some sort of fashion to generate a nice hefty revenue, we are better targets for hacking. In effect, a better payout for their work.
If I were a hacker, I'd just post to these boards asking people to check out my gallery for help. Or whatever else I could think of to get the webmasters and others to click on my link. Then log the IP's on the web host. Whola! A high number of "good" targets. And then just start trying to penetrate the systems. Hell, a large number of you probably have File and Print sharing turned on since we all have nice, pretty home networks. Lots of times, all anyone has to do really is type \\999.999.999.999\ to connect to your shared drives. Unless you properly protected it. Try it on your own IP's!
Maybe people could reply with some simple, helpful tips here to help secure the system.
Here's a couple easy ones:
1).Don't browse click on people's links unless you are sure you have a secure system or are doing it from a machine that only has useless crap on it.
2). Require passwords for shared folders (duh!)
3). Possibly even use a dial-up for browsing messages boards "uncharted territory".
4). Don't use default passwords.
5). If you are running a linux box, give "Crack" a whirl on your password file. It can be found at
http://www.users.dircon.co.uk/~crypto/download/
6). If you just clicked the link above without making sure your system is secure, SHAME ON YOU!
Hopefully no one thinks I'm talking down to them. But I've found myself in the same boat before not taking simple precautions.