My prompting for writing this article is occurring right this moment. My personal firewall software has thrown up a dialog box stating that someone is probing port 27374 on my computer. ...again ..... this is eighth time today.

This is not a technical document, but serves as an alert to new surfer and unaware. I will leave technical aspects to more expert writers among us.

Hackers seem to have gained a fairly respectful reputation in society these days, mainly due to glorification by media. This article is not about true hackers, but about their wannabe counterparts - Script Kiddies.

A Script Kiddie is someone who is "socially challenged" and has very little respect for privacy of others. They utilise freely available software, which is easy to use, to scan networks in hope of finding a computer that is compromised enough to allow them to have some fun.

Fun includes crashing your machine, opening CD-ROM tray, controlling your mouse, stealing your files or other "really cool" activities such as stealing your PWD (password) file for cracking later on. Script Kiddies gain this type of control through utilising Trojan programs that have been installed on your computer by other means (usually by executing unscanned infected email attachments or software downloads). The Trojan broadcasts it's presence to world, so as Script Kiddie sits back and picks his nose, or engages in other such habits, port probing program he is running detects any suitable Trojan, makes a connection and he's in.......akin to home invasion.

These Trojan programs take up residence on certain ports on your computer. And here's scary bit. There are approximately 65 000 ports on your PC. Each Trojan has its "favorite" port, so that makes Script Kiddie's cushy job even easier. Since installing my firewall a month ago, I have had notifications that these particular ports have been probed over 300 times.