Re: Active Ports

newby here. i was tinkering with tcpview the other day killing processes just to see how fast it would, and suddenly the Nt authority shut my system. I wrote the event down, did a google, and found that i may have been hit by blaster or a variant. i have aports, autoruns, process explorer,sygate pro, spywareblaster. spywareguard, adaware v6 and spybot.

i can try to kill a process with aports by shutting the port, but it takes a long time to work, and sometimes it just doesnt do it. tcpview works more often than not. process explorer works about the same as the latter.

so, here is my question: after the message about authority system shutting down my machine scared the hell out of me, and after running norton and avg and some other tests recommended by ms, plus one or two other test which never showed anything wrong, and after my machine boots and runs ok, never shuts down, well, what other tests can i run? i even have systemsafe, and nothing oyt of the ordinary ever comes up. thanks for any reply.

jose

"Brian" wrote in > news:4125afab$0$4136$ snipped-for-privacy@news.skynet.be: > > > I found this useful freeware program that runs in the background and > > constantly monitors all running services. I was amazed to see that I > > have 35 services listening on different ports and one established > > connection (Messenger). > > Well is Messenger supposed to have a connection? > > > Surely that means that a hacker has 35 opportunities to penetrate my > > PC. If the services are listening to all those ports it must mean that > > they are receptive to any incoming signals. > > The only way a hacker for the most part is going to do that is if the > machine has been compromised by a Trojan that is listening on the port and > you see a remote connection. Yes, Sygate will allow the connection to the > remote IP, because something a (program) has solicited inbound traffic from > a remote site. Otherwise, Sygate should block all unsolicited inbound > traffic. A Trojan can piggy back off something like svchost.exe or other > programs like MSN and communicate out. > > > The Sygate SPFP firewall is presumably designed to intercept > > non-standard code addressed to those services but can I be sure of > > that? > > Unsolicited traffic YES but solicited traffic NO. And unsolicited traffic > can come in if the FW is somehow mis-configured. > > > I have various other security programs installed but I'm not yet > > convinced that this firewall is doing a good job. In particular, the > > Traffic Log tells me that my PC is occasionally and spontaneously > > (even during screen saver periods) addressing remote locations that > > mean nothing to me when I trace them. Paranoia is setting in! > > Once, malware hits the machine and can execute, it's over and if you're > depending upon the highly overrated Application Control the (crutch) to > tell you what's happing with things on the computer and programs being > stopped or not stopped by Application Control, then you may want to think > again. > > You should look for yourself from time to time on a routine basis. You > should put a short-cut for Active Ports with screen Refresh rate set to > high and see what's making connection at the boot and login sequence, since > Sygate cannot get to the TCP/IP connection before the malware can to stop > it. > > You may want to use Process Explorer (free) to look at running processes > and you can look inside a running process to see what processes are using > it. > >
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> ootkit_Tools_in_a_Windows_Environment.html > > You close down uneeded services that close down ports and *harden* the O/S > to attack. The buck stops at the O/S and everything else is secondary to > it. > >
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> > Duane :) >
Reply to
Vargas
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On Thu, 26 Aug 2004 14:25:30 -0700, Vargas spoketh

You may have ended up shutting down LSA, in which case the computer will restart to get that service running again...

Lars M. Hansen

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Reply to
Lars M. Hansen

Thank you very much for your reply. You are most likely right.I considered repeating the "experiment," but perhaps I shoudnt. The machine is working fine and it has all the patches. Since we are in it, may I ask if I should let tcpview.exe access the network? I said "no" to the firewall when asked. Does aports.exe access the network? And, lastly, Is there a little more advanced utility that will show me more information than tcpvie and aports? Thanks for your followup.

jose

Reply to
Vargas

Try Ethereal if you want detailed packet info.

You claim you had full patches. If so, there's no way you could have gotten Blaster or Sasser via network. I assume you killed a critical process.

michael

Reply to
xmp

Yes, I would like to have more details and that would let me gain more control of the ports i see open and would want to close at will (or something like that). And you are right, I also suspected I clobbered a critical process, but nevertheless i went to google and stuff.

I will look at Ethereal. How about TDC (sp?) from australia, anybody knows about it?

Thanks all,

Jose

Reply to
Vargas

FWIW, If you're running Windows you should take a look at Packetyzer. It uses the same WinPCap library Ethereal uses, and in my opinion it's more stable, and every bit as useful for anything but the most intense analysis user under Win32 operating systems.

There's also Sniphere, but in my opinion it is to packet capture what OE is to email clients. ;) Still, it may be all you need for casual use.

Reply to
Copelandia Cyanescens

what was your experience with i,t michael? i tried a different version a couple or three years ago on a different machine, but not being that well educated on these matters, i didnt have a chance to fully explore its possibilities. mind you, i am still ignorant, but less so i think. would you recommend their big package which includes three utilities including a packet sniffer?

jose

Reply to
Vargas

are these utilities good at shutting ports on command? i think aports and tcpvew are weak in that respect. will check up on your suggestions and try. also, can anybody guess if aports.exe should be allowed into the net? tha still puzzles me, as sygate reported one request which i denied. any clues, hints, uh? thanks folks for your help.

jose

Reply to
Vargas

On Sat, 28 Aug 2004 17:29:02 -0700, Vargas spoketh

Active Ports and tcpview are to see what ports are in use... If you want to close a port, close the application/service that's using it.

Lars M. Hansen

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'badnews' with 'news' in e-mail address)

Reply to
Lars M. Hansen

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