Connecting to a Windows Share Outside a Network...

Myself and a few other friends have been doing a lot of LAN games and such over the holiday break. We often share files over the network and leave our C drives shared. Now I never really considered this a security risk or anything at the time. Durring the week we were playing over the net and I wanted to send a friend of mine some files and it came to my curiostiy, couldnt I just send them to his shared folder if I had his IP? Well I couldnt for some reason and so I figured it wasnt a big deal and sent them through AIM.

Anyway what I really want to know is what are the security risks of sharing drives? If I leave my C drive shared is it vulnerable to people who want to steal my files? Since then I have put a password on my share and my friends have done the same. But if we wanted to send something to each other, is it possible to connect to the share, put in the password, and transfer the files??

My friend tried to conenct to my share like this:

\\myip-address\c (in IE)

but that didnt work he said. Is there a way to do it? and if so what are the risks I would be taking?

Liquid_Darkness,

If you share your C drive (and someone want to "hack" your PC) then you are living your "doors" completely open. Entering in your C drive is entering in all your machine by plenty of different ways. They could see your Windows folder and so your registry, win.ini and system.ini... and much more... in a few words... they can do what they want with your PC. If you gonna share folders "at least" don't share the C drive, just tell your friends to create a folder to share your files and you do the same. This way at least you are less vulnerable that if you're sharing your C drive.

Take care...

I forgot... it doesn't matter your shared folders have passwords... there's a lot of programs out there to decipher them, in this "simple" hacks, passwords are not obstacles for hackers.

dont do it in IE... do it from Start>>Run>>ip.address\share

Yeah I figured that if they COULD get into a shared folder from outside a network then it would be a huge security risk. and if I had write access enabled it would be even worse. Okay so I guess we'll set it up to share just a specific folder with it passworded. How do we connect remotly to the folder? just like on a network? \\computername(orIP)\folder\folder\ or what?

Thanks for the help

yep, you've got it.

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Originally posted here by bluebeard96
dont do it in IE... do it from Start>>Run>>ip.address\share

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Ahh thanks didnt see that. :)

yeah... and I notice I forgot the \\ in front of the ip, but you know that already! :)

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\\computername(orIP)\folder\folder\

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it would be \\ip address\foldershare

if you wanted to make it "hidden"... you could always put a $ after the sharename when you define the share.

then they would connect \\ip address\foldershare$

I only say this because if an unauthorized user did a simple

net view ipaddress

they would see your share and you'd make it that much easier for them.

Then... set the properties on the sharefolder so only you have full access, and give everyone else read access only, unless they need to be able to write to your drive too.

It would also be good to keep a firewall on there and give them individually access as they need it.

there is plenty more stuff to do, but if you don't need the share on any longer than when you are playing a game... then disable it!

You could also connect to the computer such that it appears as a drive on your computer.

net use g: \\IPAddress\SharedFolder

To disconnect, just type:

net use g: /delete

Also, there are vulnerabilities in the Win9x NetBios password system which in the past have basically rendered it useless (with patches should be fixed). There is an exploit at the top of this page for the NetBios password system. PQWak is a program which can crack NetBios passwords, you can download it here. Whether these will work or not is another thing, but it would be worth testing them on your system to make sure that no-one can use them to crack your shares.

ohh thats cool.. so net share (ipadress) will show shared folders on a computer? and $ after the share hides it from it?

Is net share a console command in windows or is it for *nix's? i wasnt aware people could see my shares like that.

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Originally posted here by powertoad5000
You could also connect to the computer such that it appears as a drive on your computer.

net use g: \\IPAddress\SharedFolder

To disconnect, just type:

net use g: /delete

Also, there are vulnerabilities in the Win9x NetBios password system which in the past have basically rendered it useless (with patches should be fixed). There is an exploit at the top of this page for the NetBios password system. PQWak is a program which can crack NetBios passwords, you can download it here. Whether these will work or not is another thing, but it would be worth testing them on your system to make sure that no-one can use them to crack your shares.

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oh cool thanks for the links. I dont run a 9x system anymore but one of my friends does. I'll make good use of these tools.

A few more questions.. so net use is a program ran from console that works with network shares and such? I can use it to create a fake drive that is actually a share on another computer...

And netbios is the protocol for filesharing in windows or what?

thanks for the help this is really usefull info.

ohh thats cool.. so net share (ipadress) will show shared folders on a computer? and $ after the share hides it from it?

Is net share a console command in windows or is it for *nix's? i wasnt aware people could see my shares like that.

Run it from your command prompt. Works on my Win2k box

net use is the equivalent of browsing through network neghborhood, right clicking on a target drive, and selecting "Map Network Drive" That way you don't have to kee retyping your share. In addition, some programs (quickbooks, for example) do not like \\computername\share folders... they want mapped drives.

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And netbios is the protocol for filesharing in windows or what?

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read about netbios here, and here

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ohh thats cool.. so net share (ipadress) will show shared folders on a computer? and $ after the share hides it from it?

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from a command prompt

c:\net view computername

or

c:\net view ipaddress

there is much more to it... read the links above

Wow thanks for the links.. those are really interesting. Is it possible to logon to a remote computer using the netbios? Like net logon (ip) and it would give me a user and pass prompt?

Then I could login to accounts my friends setup for me?

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Is it possible to logon to a remote computer using the netbios? Like net logon (ip) and it would give me a user and pass prompt?

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No. If you connect to their share drive... that is logging in, kinda...

but if you mean terminal emulation... then they'd have to have a server or server app running.

if they have telnet or ssh (server apps) or something loaded... then you can login and execute commands and the like. There are some remote access programs that will also let you do this.

radmin is pretty cool
pcanywhere is also good.

There is an active thread right now about remote access software.

View it here.