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Understanding Internet risks

Risks from active content

Other Trojan horse programs might record all your keystrokes to capture passwords and other sensitive data. Norton Personal Firewall blocks the ports that Remote Access Trojan horse programs use to communicate over the Internet.

Covering tracks

When a hacker has gained as much control of a computer as possible, the task turns to concealing the evidence. If you don’t know that a hacker has compromised your computer, you won’t take steps to stop such actions.

On computers running Windows 2000/XP, hackers try to turn off auditing and modify or clear the event logs. On any computer, hackers may hide files so that they are available for future visits. In extreme cases, hackers might format the hard drive of a compromised computer to avoid identification.

Risks from active content

ActiveX controls and Java applets are called active content because they can do more than display text or graphics. Most active content is safe. Common uses of active content are popup menus and up-to-date stock quotes.

Both ActiveX and Java are supposed to be safe to run in your browser. ActiveX uses a system of digital certificates that lets you decide if you want an ActiveX control to run. Digital certificates appear as dialog boxes that ask if you want to install and run a control that appears when you are browsing the Web.

There are several problems with using digital certificates. Some controls do not have certificates, and some certificates provide very little information about what the control does.

The Java sandbox was designed to prevent Java applets from accessing information outside of the browser and doing anything that might harm your computer. However, hackers continually find ways to get around Java safeguards and use Java features in ways not conceived of by its developers.

Norton Personal Firewall monitors active content and can block all active content or warn you whenever active content is encountered. Norton AntiVirus Auto-Protect detects malicious ActiveX controls and Java applets and prevents them from running.

Norton Personal Firewall monitors active content and can block all active content or warn you whenever active content is encountered.

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HP Norton Personal Firewall 2003 manual Risks from active content, Covering tracks