Can't connect to IM. RESOLVED (NO REPRO)

[Testlund]

Yeah, I've heard about people saying they don't use any security software and they never have
problems. That's the thing when it comes to computers, that two people with the same computers
can experience totally different things. My brother says I'm too extreme too and he doesn't
use any firewall.
I'm thinking that in many situations people may not know the difference how a computer behaves
when it's infected or not. I don't know about your router, but I know about people that didn't even
know their computers were infected until they installed security software that tells them about
it. The purpose with malicious code after all is to run undetected. How can you know if it's a
software bug or vulnerable code that mess things up for you?
Some people just gets infected more than others. It may depend on what you download, what sites you
browse at, or just a random port scan that happens to connect through a vulnerability in your system.
On occasion it can be a targeted attack too. Some people are just bad code magnets, like teenage girls for instance that chats a lot on messenger, sharing pictures and downloading all those little cute games with malware in them.
After my sisters daughter had been using my mothers computer for a weekend I found over 200 viruses in it! After that happend I also found a hacker that managed to get access through a flaw in Norton Internet Security (firewall and antivirus bundle) that automatically accepted access thinking it was a trusted network, causing the same hijacking of Internet Explorer, even after a fresh install of Windows. Just to name an example what can happend once a hacker finds a nice target.

[Peter]

Well, your point is clear, computer-defence is needed.

Ofcource it is needed, but he.

I quote

If you have internet access without a good firewall for half an hour or more you can expect anything to get messed up inside your computer.

You say just the acess to internet for half an hour could break a computer, let I just say that my computer was todat for something like a few hours completely unprotected, nothing no virus-scanner no firewall anything, I stopped any program from starting up to check the network-problems. I have forget to put them on, your speech inmidatly made me put it back on.

And the teenage girl you describe looks awful much like my sister, she hasn't got any problems, atleast she doesn't say she have. Maybe do a little scan on her computer, it wouldn't suprise me if it was serious infected.

Edit:
Testlund have you checked a internet port-scanner, with that many port-scans it seems to me they aren't like they call it 'stealth'. So it can be seen there is a computer a the IP, and the scans are being done to attack if the configuration has changed and a port is unblocked.

[Numsgil]

Port scans aren't always malicious.  Especially if you're behind a router: your actual computer isn't visible to the internet.  Only your router is.  And most routers by default disallow access to their internals from the outside of the network.

[Testlund]

Yeah, routers are pretty secure, I forgot to mension that, but only for inbound connections. They won't stop a trojan horse though.

[Testlund]

Edit:
Testlund have you checked a internet port-scanner, with that many port-scans it seems to me they aren't like they call it 'stealth'. So it can be seen there is a computer a the IP, and the scans are being done to attack if the configuration has changed and a port is unblocked.

Nothing gets unblocked. It just records that something tries to access but fails. Not all port scans are hacker activity, I know that, but it's hard to know which is and which isn't.

By the way, Peter... If you have a router together with the Comodo Firewall I recommended your computer should be solid proof, unless you happen to allow access for something that shouldn't. I've been thinking about getting a router myself, but it appears I don't need it. Haven't had any serious security issues yet. Knock on wood.

[Peter]

By the way, Peter... If you have a router together with the Comodo Firewall I recommended your computer should be solid proof, unless you happen to allow access for something that shouldn't. I've been thinking about getting a router myself, but it appears I don't need it. Haven't had any serious security issues yet. Knock on wood.

Well, the reason for me to have a router hasn't got anything to do with security. Mainly it is becouse it was included to the phone/internet connection, means it was free.  

It is routing the phone and the computers nicely just what it has to do, and it is even taking care for the security of the network.  

Also has a fast lan-connection on local network it has a ping 1 or 2 miliseconds on the network, means it is fast enough to play games on a harddisk onto another computer, that works fine, have tested. Ofcource a bit pointless to play games on the computer that is just a room away, but eh, yes.. it saves diskspace  .