Over the past few months, things seem to have quieted down, but over the last few days, I've taken a surprising number of hits from all over the world on my FTP port. If you are running an FTP server (or Microsoft's Personal Web Server) I would be real sure my FTP port was buttoned up pretty tight. I assume that some hacker somewhere has discovered a new FTP exploit that's making the rounds, but I didn't see anything in the security notices.

Also, if you are running Netscape version 4.74 or earlier, TURN OFF JAVA. A very nasty Java exploit was recently pointed out in the X-Force security alert. Internet Explorer is not affected by this problem.

This attack actually installs a server on your machine so you are vulnerable even after you have shut down your browser. The server can be configured by the attacker to use any port, but the default is 8080. Of course, you should be regularly checking netstat for unexpected ports - right??