I'll second the previous post... Firewalls are GREAT. Keep them updated though, and set them so that nothing is allowed to access in or out without your permission.

That's how we caught on that we'd been hacked. I'd become suspicious when I didn't recognize a file or two in our MP3 collection, even more so when I found hundreds of MP3 fragments in my main windows directory.

The final realization came when I got paranoid and cut the firewall to max security. At a time when NOTHING that I'd started was supposed to be accessing online, I suddenly recieved messages that there were 3 programs sending and recieving data on the machine.

It's VERY preferrable to have to manually authorize net access rather than have programs accessing in and out without your knowledge. It's a bit of a hassle to say "OK, I authorize Netscape to access the web THIS TIME ONLY", but I'd much rather that than find out some punk has been rummaging through my system.

M