Using netbios ports?

This site is really good for security purpose. Well from this site i came to know that open netbios ports can be hacked by uploading victims ip in lmhost file. Well i use win98 microsoft networking without anyfirewall installed and sharing ports are enabled always. So i've following questions
Do any one could hack my network by lmhost file?
If i'll upgrade my network to win2000 pro than lmhost file method will work properly or not?
In case of win2000 when a hacker will try to connect to victims system than he will ask for some user name and password or not when i've not protected my shared ports with a password?
Hope for some good response.

Note:-i need no kiddies of installing firewalls.

Well, just to clear something up - you don't necessarily have to add someone's IP address to your lmhost file to 'hack' them.. If a machine is improperly configured, you can connect to them very easily without having to edit the lmhosts file.. But this isn't really 'hacking', but I won't get in to that here...

If you upgraded to Win 2000, you'd be a little more secure, but it all depends on how your machines are configured.

The difference between windows 2000 and windows 95/98 in regards to netbios is you actually have the capability in the underlying OS (assuming you used NTFS to format the partition) to assign user rights/permissions to various directories and the ability to tweak exactly what is shown/available through netbios commands, where windows95/98 without a firewall has no capability to block netbios stuff other than to not use it at all (unbind it from your interface, don't enable sharing).

Editing your lmhosts file is not much different that editing an /etc/hosts file, it just provides name resolution for netbios without having to query the computer or a wins server for its name. I highly recommend moving to either windows 2000 or windows XP depending on what you are going to use your computer for, it has the capability to be much more secure (you still have to know how to do it). I wrote a starter tut on hardening windows 2000, using this would protect you somewhat from netbios style attacks; however, I still highly highly recommend sitting behind either a firewall or a personal firewall.

http://www.antionline.com/showthread...hreadid=234577

/nebulus

Just disable file & print sharing and you have absolutely nothing to worry about wrt netbios.

Check this site out. some basic info on securing your computer from malicious, horrible, vendetta seeking, war mongering, beligerent..................9 year olds? yeah, you got it. I just seen on my local news, the newest trouble maker was 9 years old....breaking into small business LAN's. sheesh. and to think, I was still playing with GI JOE action figures and these kids are re-writing my paychecks.

anyways, here it is. have fun.
http://www.mynetsec.com/html/windows.html