Intruders Are Everywhere

Judging from the latest results of the Networking Pipeline Voting Booth, hackers and intruders are everywhere, but you're doing a good job of keeping them away from your network.

Fifty five percent of you said that you've been targeted by intruders, but security measure kept them out of your network. Eighteen percent reported that intruders have made their way past your security and managed to get into your network. And only twenty seven percent of you said that there have been no attempted break-ins. So that means nearly three-quarters of you have been attacked in some way.

The only real surprise in those numbers are that twenty seven percent haven't been targeted. Hackers and would-be intruders are everywhere. Even home networks have bull's-eyes on them - when I check the security logs of my own small network in my home office, I find dozens of port probes a day. Granted, these are not targeted attacks, and are generally the result of script kiddies sending out automated probes to many thousands of computers. Still, it shows just how widespread the problem has become.

The good news is that your security measures are paying off. But hackers are constantly escalating the sophistication of their attacks, so you can never be secure enough. I hope next time we do the survey, an even higher percentage of you will have thwarted the bad guys.