The release of an exploit that means a hacker, who happens to be on the same local area network, can knock over Windows Firewall on machines running XP has created a lot of publicity, despite being not much of a threat.

By using the exploit, an attacker could disable Windows Firewall on a fully patched machine running Internet Connection Service (ICS).

ICS allows small businesses or home users to share an internet connection through a machine which acts as a hub. But with the advent of cheap routers few people need to use the service which, as nCircle points out, can be disabled quite easily without turning off Windows Firewall.

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