Sharing
your hard drive
Guidelines
for protecting your computer and your data from damage
All
versions of Microsoft Windows since Windows 95 have
provided the ability to share files and printers
from one computer so that they can be accessed by
other computers on the same network. While such
file sharing is possible on ResNet, WITS does not
recommend or support it. We will not help you set
it up, and we will not assist you in diagnosing
any problems that you may be having with it. However,
we do offer the following advice in hopes that it
will help you avoid the worst potential consequences
of file sharing.
1.
Minimize your use of file and printer sharing.
If you don't need to have file sharing turned
on, then turn it off. As long as your computer
has file and printer sharing enabled, it is more
vulnerable to various kinds of intrusion over
the network.
2.
Keep your anti-virus software up to date.
Many computer viruses or worms can move to computers
that have unprotected shared folders. WITS has
cut off transmission of viruses through our email
server, but there is no way for us to control
infections that exploit file sharing because there
is no central point (like the email server) through
which the virus or worm must travel as the infection
spreads across the network. It's up to each individual
computer to defend itself against this source
of infection.
3.
Keep your Windows software up to date. Microsoft
frequently releases patches that close security
holes in the Windows operating systems, including
security problems with file and printer sharing.
Establish a regular schedule for downloading and
installing such patches and stick to it. See our
operating
system updates page for more information.
4.
Use passwords to protect your shared folders.
Windows lets you set passwords for read and write
access to your shared folders. At the very least,
you should create a password for write access
in order to protect yourself from viruses and
from other computer users who might find an unprotected
folder to be a convenient dumping ground for their
files.
There
have been instances in the past in which users with
outdated anti-virus software and unprotected shared
folders have had their computers infected by viruses
within minutes of attaching their computers to ResNet
at the beginning of the fall semester. These infections
came from other students' infected computers, where
viruses were actively monitoring the network and
pouncing on each unprotected computer as it came
on line. Even if your anti-virus software is up
to date, you should password-protect your shared
folders so you won't be inundated with messages
from the anti-virus software telling you about the
infections it has fended off.
More
Information:
