LAN advice please

[sb85]

hiho


we currently have 4 comps in our house, conencted to the net via a router.
each comp has XP home btw.

i have NAV and update definitions daily.
the router has a firewall and i have Zonealarm on my comp also.

2 of the other 3 comps have NAV on them
no one else has a firewall on their comp.

everyone downloads stuff regularly and access the net and use email daily.

one guy refuses to install anti virus...
but we had problems with the network as everytime one of us tried to look at files on his comp, then their Windows would freeze .
so i made him install NAV and basically all the .exe files were infected. so then he was annoyed at me 'cause none of his progs worked!

i believe his comp is clean now but win xp will still crash if we try to access his comp.


ok so basically i want to know how to make my comp secure seeing as the other 3 are not really bothered about security.

am i constantly at risk of getting a virus from the other comps?
we all have shared files and my firewall i believe gives free access to the LAN.
i want to be part of the LAN so we can play games and share files but i dont want thier viruses!


also am i at risk if say one of the other cops has a trojan on it?


thanks for any advice in advance

[n01100110]

Well a trojan , probably not.. But there are lots of worms out there that can spread themselves through the network wire and you might be at risk.. But what do you mean it crashes ? Does a certain start-up program not work ? Be a little more specific on how it crashes and why you think it does.. Until then www.simplysup.com (it is a free-trial trojan remover) It got me out of lots of hairy situations when one of my lamer friends would decide to do something stupid..

[Limpster]

Well I would say get a firewall on his comp to make sure. Explain to his the risks of not having AV and maybe even take away his administrator rights. You may be at risk if he has a trojan if you run an infected shared file. The client connected to the trojan may also be able to compromise the other computers on your LAN through DOS commands. I would reccommend some network packet monitors and registry watchers. There are lots of posts on AO with links to such tools.

[bballad]

If you have nav and a personal firewall you should be basicly safe. Set his IP as aprt of the interent and not part of your internal network on zonealarms, and scan any file he sends you.

[sb85]

Originally posted here by n01100110
But what do you mean it crashes ? Does a certain start-up program not work ? Be a little more specific on how it crashes and why you think it does..

i have the start bar hidden off screen and if i try to connect to the other comp i cant click on any icons or get the start menu to apear at all. crtl-alt-del does not bring up the task manager, i can click on any of the icons in the windows i have open (i can close the windows).

sometimes when ive tried to connect to an FTP by mistake through windows that is off line i get a similar effect but windows puts up a messgage shortly after saying cannot connect/timed out. however when i try to connect to the problem comp, windows seems to be permenantly locked and no matter how long i leave it i end up pulling hte power on my comp.


thanks for all replies

[da'dodo]

Have you tried reading files on other PC's from his PC? I found that when other PC's tried to read shares on my PC it wouldn't let them, because I hadn't told my firewall that they were allowed to, hence they timed out.

I don't think it makes sense in this case (as a firewall should allow incoming packets once an outgoing connection has been established to his PC), but try it. Does his PC crash?

Or (silly question, but to eliminate all possiblilities,) has he shut his PC down? It takes a while for the icon to be removed from the 'My Network' area, which causes it to crash (or spend a _long_ time waiting for it to time out, effectively freezing the window, and possibly some other stuff).

[sb85]

every thing did used to be ok, anyone could read everyones files.
not one of the other three computers can read any files of the problem PC, now.
i am trying to remember what happened or what he installed when it started going wrong. i'm pretty sure it was a week or so before i made him install NAV and then all the viri were found.
i'm also pretty sure that he has formatted and reinstalled windows since.

the problem PC can read files from any of the other computers, and can add/remove stuff on the other computers without problem.

the comp was definatley on every time.

the problem PC does not crash.


it's a real annoying problem especially as he has the communal porn collection! hehehe

[XTC46]

make sure he has file sharing on, if file sharing is not on and he has maybe one file that is shared it will take a long time and look like the comp is frozen, how long did you wait for it to unfreeze, Ive seen comps go 5 mins before they unlock. can the problem computer connect to others, and can he connect to the net, if not try checking that he is actually connecting to you guys. if anything just unplug all connections reset the router and all info and start the network from scratch. It may help.

[dionjuan2004]

i'm staying in a hostel with all the rooms connected by lan, so if you want to share something and not let everyone know about it you put a $ sign after the file name like - movies$, now when ppl browse through network they will not see this folder shared and to access this one needs to go to \\comp's name\movies$. but is this fool proof?? i mean any wayz people can still see this??

[Noia]

An AV takes care of all the Viruses, and a Firewall should take care of all Network aware worms, so with those two properly configured, you should be fine*

(*:Not a guarantee)

- Noia