Cora said:
Is it possible to close a port easily? All attacks I think are in Port 80 on my PC. Norton firewall reads a log of a year or more I have kept, and out of 5 or 6 plus attempted attacks on my PC it all reads in the log.....
Attacked Port: Http (80)
I have Windows XP, have DSL on all the time. Is there a way to close that port?
Cora,
Generally speaking, ports can be open, closed, or blocked. When you are being probed to determine your PC's vulnerability to a subsequent attack - it is best if all of your ports are stealthed, i.e. blocked. This means that your PC does not respond to any probes as if the IP address does not exist. The prober moves on without knowing that there was a live computer on the other end of the probe. If a port is open, well, then the PC is vulnerable to attack. If your PC returns a status of closed, the prober then knows there is a live computer there, and may try other attacks to penetrate the PC at a later time.
No matter what firewall you are running, even if hardware, it is best to supplement it with one of two outstanding free firewalls which can be downloaded from various websites for personal use (free):
1) ZoneAlarm, or
2) Sygate.
Sygate has a number of scanning tests against various protocols (UDP, TCP, ICMP) that really open up your eyes about how vulnerable you can be when attached to the Internet. Check out:
http://scan.sygate.com
Either of these will effectively stealth all of your ports.
Ok, so when your ports are effectively blocked to incoming probes, what about the outbound traffic? How do you prevent a malicious program that has squirreled itself away, and collects your personal information for nefarious purposes?
Again, either of the above two free firewalls will require you to approve all outbound traffic from your computer. If you are not familiar with the applications running on your computer, their functionality and the threads and libraries associated with them - its time to think about both installing one of the two mentioned firewalls (software) and supplement with Process Explorer or similar tool which identifies your computer resources and their use.
Hope this helps!
-- Tom