Read the following link for info that just came out today from Microcsoft concerning 3 CRITICAL SECURITY FLAWS in their Windows 2000, Windows NT 4.0, Windows XP, and Windows 2003 Server software products: http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,111597,00.asp
"Personal and corporate firewalls typically block traffic on port 135, protecting those machines from exploitation." Since I'm running a router and BlackIce, I'm safe. I'd advise everybody to have a hardware firewall at least. Since I'm on cable and I got BlackIce for free, I have both hardware and software protection. I've been running BlackIce for a month now, and it appears to be overprotection - hasn't blocked any intruders yet.
I wish that all computer OS's came with rock solid firewall and intrusiuon detection capabilities built in: they dont. Whether you run MS, LINUX, UNIX variants etc you still need firewall/intrusion detection software on your public facing networks. So, while this is yet another minor embarassment for MS it really does not affect customers that have these things in place.