Since NBT is an unauthenticated protocol, it's susceptible to poisoning attacks. There are multiple ways to disable NBT, described later in this article. Additionally, DNS setup and redundancy configuration are well within the abilities of a network administrator. On modern networks, instances of an application or device not supporting DNS are rare. The most common use for NetBIOS over TCP/IP (NBT) is for name resolution, if DNS is not supported or is not working on the local network.

Session Services (utilizing TCP port 139) lets two computers establish a connection for conversation.

It allows for message broadcasts to all computers on a network.

Datagram Services (utilizing UDP port 138) is for connectionless communication over a network, such as error reporting.

Name Services (utilizing UDP or TCP port 137) allows for name registration and resolution.

NetBIOS provides three distinct services: So, What are NetBIOS used for? NetBIOS is used for name resolution and communication on a local network. Therefore, the legacy functions are still supported on today's networks. However, in modern networks, NetBIOS runs over TCP/IP via the NBT protocol. It's important to point out that NetBIOS itself is an API, not a networking protocol. Disabling the use and support of NetBIOS can help to mitigate an attacker's ability to: poison and spoof responses, obtain a user's hashed credentials, inspect web traffic, etc.

There are many security concerns with NetBIOS and disabling its support on your network and devices is strongly recommended. Network resiliency and access to resources is a good thing, but keeping NetBIOS enabled for that reason, is not.

Microsoft Windows still uses it for its name resolution function (often by default), when DNS is not available. NetBIOS (Network Basic Input/Output System) was created in the early 1980's, but is surprisingly still alive and well on many networks today.

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