16 minutes ago, Luke said:

Either the port is open, or it's not.

Of course you have open ports, otherwise how could you connect to the Internet?

There are hackers out in the world who constantly "sniff" for open ports.  They scan random IP addresses looking to penetrate any system and then upload their malware.

Yes, a good anti-virus will catch this, but only after it gets through the port and *into the computer*.

I prefer to prevent this stuff from ever getting past the firewall and onto my system.

Dave

I have been using the default Windows defender since I switched to Windows 10, and I have never had any problems with viruses - but I do not surf on risky or suspicious sites.

3 hours ago, dave2013 said:

Of course you have open ports, otherwise how could you connect to the Internet? There are hackers out in the world who constantly "sniff" for open ports.  They scan random IP addresses looking to penetrate any system and then upload their malware.

You don't understanding the distinction between inbound and outbound ports - I may be connecting to port 443 on AVSIM but I am certainly not using that on my own machine. There's the idea of an ephemeral source port number which is randomly assigned. Second, while a port may not be blocked, it also needs a process actually bound to the port and listening.

Given your lack of understanding of how TCP/IP works, I won't even get into NAT, but suffice it to say you cannot initiate a connection to a machine behind a NAT gateway in the absence of explicit port forwarding.

5 hours ago, dave2013 said:

I've used Bitdefender for years and like it.  I buy it discounted at Newegg.

I see "anti-virus" properties being discussed, but nothing about the firewall.  I've no doubt that Windows Defender is an adequate anti-virus, but I doubt its firewall is as good as Bitdefender.  The firewall prevents stuff from getting through the port into your system in the first place and is just as important as the anti-virus.

Dave

It's not being discussed because the Windows Firewall is excellent and most anti-virus / internet security suites are just layers on top of the Windows firewall. You're absolutely wasting money if you buy products for firewalls.

If you want absolute control, use something like this https://www.binisoft.org/wfc, increase filtering and set it to learning mode. Gives you 100% control in real-time over the built-in Firewall and you have the best firewall possible.

Edited January 17, 20242 yr by Sethos

1 hour ago, Luke said:

Given your lack of understanding of how TCP/IP works, I won't even get into NAT, but suffice it to say you cannot initiate a connection to a machine behind a NAT gateway in the absence of explicit port forwarding.

I'm not an IT expert. 

The fact is that hackers manage to break into the networks of big companies with IT departments and highly paid IT security folks all the time.  They break into government networks as well.

You can talk about NAT all day long, but hackers can get around it.  A good, smart firewall can stop suspicious data packets from ever getting into the network.  Obviously they can get through a good firewall as well, but it's a first line of defense.

If people want to entrust their computer security to Microsoft Windows, then by all means have at it.

Dave

 

1 hour ago, Sethos said:

It's not being discussed because the Windows Firewall is excellent

How do you know that it is "excellent"? 

Dave

21 minutes ago, dave2013 said:

The fact is that hackers manage to break into the networks of big companies with IT departments and highly paid IT security folks all the time.  They break into government networks as well.

True, and it has nothing to do with the quality of the firewall or in most cases, the technology in general.

23 minutes ago, dave2013 said:

The fact is that hackers manage to break into the networks of big companies with IT departments and highly paid IT security folks all the time.  They break into government networks as well.

Heh, yes indeed...

Usually it's some unpatched known exploit in the OS, or weak credentials, or social engineering (e.g. click this link for untold millions!, Hi mum or dad, pay fine, toll, parcel delivery, infected forwarded email link, etc.).

A lot of orgs outsource their I.T. where they are just customer number #### and things only get fixed if asked and they rollout the std. company spiel to customers regarding privacy and security.

Really needs gov legislation to force companies to be more proactive IMHO.

Cheers

32 minutes ago, dave2013 said:

How do you know that it is "excellent"? 

The majority of routers (if not all) as used for connection to the internet will include a built in firewall and usually includes more direct options for blocking std. exploits.

The Windows firewall is more about allowing what the Windows enviroment contains (like allowing XBOX) while blocking other things, it also runs zones e.g. private, domain, public where the level of what is blocked / allowed depends on the clasificaction of the network and it's level of regarded trust. It's actually reasonable in this regard.

Cheers

I use Malwarebytes.  Great program.

For the really worried, there's always TOR.

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