What? forum changed? I'm fuzzed!!!

[system]

Hi guys!

Why you changed forum layout? I LOVED old forum layout, really… I found this lot less intuitive and very very cold brrrrrrrrrr! The forum you used to have was lovely, why did you change it??? Nevermind, I miss it a lot…

Well, I’m here because I have a question I would like to ask to DavidR or any other security techies here NOT related to avast! - avast! runs just cool since I installed it so no question about this beauty. :-*

I have installed a web file-sharing application to share some music, images, movie, data you know with my friends and partners and of course this application opens port 80 and 443 to share the files.
Being little paranoid as I am -just a little- I don’t like to see those ports open when testing with GRC.com Shield’s up (or any other port scanner for instance) but they must be open to let my buddies access my computer via their web browser.

I know there’s a minimal to none chance I get hacked and alike -I never had any problem at all in 5 years using internet- but still I don’t like to see those ports open.

So my question is: is here a security hole? the server application I’m using is updated and from as far I know it’s a lot stable and don’t have any security issue - it had but their parents fixed them all
Does give any help to use DropMyRights when launching this app? In the event somebody tries to hack my machine, giving Limited User rights to this applications, helps in any way?

I’m anxious about your response!!

By the way, surfing n’ researching for security enhancers I’m came across this website [u]http://www.yasc.net/[/u] where you can find two freeware applications Harden-it and Secure-it. The second app, Secure-it acts much like DropMyRights but with a right-click menu parameter on any executable, but the first app, Harden-it, it’s sweeeeet, like the Swiss Army Victorinox -oops sorry bor the Ad 8)- I’m sure you will find it interesting.
Other App I found and I’m studing but defenitely like is Altiris Software Virtualization (www.altiris.com). This pretty application “virtualize” any application you want or even any system change you want letting you record all the changes in a virtual layer so you can activate it when you need it and then deactivate it and your base system remains intact… sadly it don’t work at the moment with drivers and alike -antivirus, firewall, etc.- but still’s great app, and it’s free. They’re going to release their new version in a month or less, so hurry to grab it before Symantec put their hands on this company - Symantec will acquire Altiris by half of this year or so.

Once again, thank you very much for your time!! Regards to DavidR, Tech, mouserme, alanrf, Eddie, polonius, and ALL of you, our heros, that hang allways helping we the mere mortals

With love,
Martin

[Lisandro]

@martosurf post:1

So my question is: [b]is here a security hole?

Well… paranoid people will say yes.
Normal people know that you must have a door opened to get out of your house and live on Internet.
I mean, only an off-line computer won’t be vulnerable.
Which firewall do you use?

@martosurf post:1

Does give any help to use DropMyRights when launching this app? In the event somebody tries to hack my machine, giving Limited User rights to this applications, helps in any way?

eMule has a limited-user account mode and this way, does not allow any of its processes to run with admin rights which is, for sure, safer.

@martosurf post:1

Other App I found and I’m studing but defenitely like is Altiris Software Virtualization (www.altiris.com). This pretty application “virtualize” any application you want or even any system change you want letting you record all the changes in a virtual layer so you can activate it when you need it and then deactivate it and your base system remains intact… sadly it don’t work at the moment with drivers and alike -antivirus, firewall, etc.- but still’s great app, and it’s free. They’re going to release their new version in a month or less, so hurry to grab it before Symantec put their hands on this company - Symantec will acquire Altiris by half of this year or so.

I’ve tested Altiris and do not like that much. The independence of the virtual application is not complete. I suggest you use full virtualization with free VMware Server. You’ll need a good amount of RAM to do so, but nothing that much you can’t test.