Shoutbox

I went to this site:
https://www.grc.com/x/ne.dll?bh0bkyd2
and tested all ports for stealth status. All ports came up stealth except port 1030 which showed as closed, as shown in the snapshot below. Is this a security threat to my PC? I'm running Norton Internet Security 2008. I tried turning Windows Firewall on in conjunction with NIS2008 and all ports become stealth, but NIS2008 alone leaves 1030 closed. I know that running two firewalls simultaneously is not recommended, so how can I fix this? Thanks.

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Originally posted by alegator
Is this a security threat to my PC?

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No, not at all. It's just letting the world know the port is closed whenever a machine asks. A closed port can't be exploited in any way.

Not being stealth just means remote machines can see if your machine is turned on, but I wouldn't worry about that.

If Windows Firewall stealths it, why not drop NIS and enable Windows Firewall ?

Windows Firewall will stealth all ports only if turned on simultaneously with NIS2008. If used alone it won't, but I read it's not recommended to have two firewalls used at the same time.

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Originally posted by alegator
Windows Firewall will stealth all ports only if turned on simultaneously with NIS2008. If used alone it won't, but I read it's not recommended to have two firewalls used at the same time.

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I'm only running Windows Firewall and all of my ports were stealthed

Personally I'd recommend removing Norton and all traces of it......it truly is the devil.

After that you might find that Windows Firewall does it properly

i think before you want a port to be stealthed, you need to understand what it means

"open" means there is a server running on your computer, waiting for connections on that port from the internet so it can serve them (on a web server, port 80 will be open.) "closed" means there is no program listening on that port, and nobody can connect to it. "stealth" is just a made-up word that means when they tested that port, they didn't get any response back at all. "stealth" is only useful if all of your ports are that way, which they usually aren't because ports need to be forwarded for a lot of things to work (like file transfers and bittorrent.) if any of your ports are open, even if you want them to be, it defeats the point of having any ports "stealth," which is only to prevent people from checking whether your IP belongs to a real computer or not.

Also, if you're using a router or certain kinds of modems, it will make all ports appear "stealth" except for those you have "forwarded" to a certain computer in the router/modem's config.

you don't have a hardware firewall in your router or such?

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Originally posted by Jarrod
you don't have a hardware firewall in your router or such?

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Routers automatically act like firewalls due to a side-effect of how NAT works.

i know that i was wondering if alegator had one