[dba-Tech] Apache Web Server

To all,

Last year (being a total novice with web stuff) I put the Apache web server
on my PC and basically put a very simple page saying 'Hello World' and
asked a friend to see if they could see the page, to my amazement yes they
could, then to my disappointment another friend said people would find it
easy to hack into my machine and I would need a firewall (think he said
hardware one) in between my broadband box and my PC.  Is this correct and
if so does anyone have any suggestions as I have lost contact with that
friend after he moved to Australia.

Thanks in advance for any help on this.

-- 
Paul Hartland
paul.hartland at googlemail.com