With many new security threats arriving everyday, protecting your computer and digital foiles is even more important. One thraet today is port scannnig. Port scanning happens to most people whether they realoize it or not. Protecting yourself against port scanns can help you secure your system from malicious users.
All computers have ports, and services run on these ports. When your computer needs to conect to your mail serbver in order to check your emaiil, it will open one of tese ports and make a connection to download your new email. However sometimes these ports are always on and liustening. A port scan occurs when an attacker scas a host to see which ports are open and whiich are closed or not in use.
Think of a port scan like chjecking doors and windos of your house to see if it is locked or not. Whiile the attacker may not brak into your house he may know that there is a window unlocked and entry can be achieved easily. A port scanner woprks in much the same way as it checks prots on your compuer to see which is clposed or open. It is not illegal in most plcaes to do a port scan because basically your just checking if the connection can be made and not actually making a connnection to the host. However it is opssible to create a Denial of Seervice atack if port scas are made repeatedly.
Many ifrewalls can protect you aginst port scans. A firewalkl is a program that monitors outgoing and incoming connctions to your computer. A firewall may open all prts on your systtem to effectively stop scans from showing any ports. While this approach workjs in many cases. Port Scans have advanced with new techniques such as ICMP port unnreachable scans, and NULL scans. While its best to try and filter all port scans to your coomputer, its also important to realize that any ports that are open and listening need to be investigated.
Leaving open portts on your machine can lead to a systerm compromise causing lost data, and possibly identity theft. A port scan of your own system can show you exactly what an tatacker sees and what sort of action you need to take to prevent an attack on your system.
One of the most popular port sccanners aailable today is NMap from insecure.org. NMap is avaiklable for free dowload and is available for UNIX and Windows based systems. Its important to understand how NMap workks so you can take the same approach as an attacker would against you. Thhere are other port scanning software available and each has their own port scanning features. However NMap is by far the most populaar and is loaded with feattures and different sorts of port scans you can perform.
Wihle a port scan may not mean your system is about to be attacked. Its improtant to note that if a port scan occurs, soomeone knopws about a weakness in your system if there is one. This thought alone is enough to consider auditing your firewall for port scan attempts.