Info on firewalls

[maddogkf]

I just installed a McAfee's anti-virus software & firewall

The firewall says things like this:

2003/08/21 17:28:22 68.108.248.239:0 (ip68-108-248-239.sb.sd.cox.net) 68.109.187.214:0 ICMP Ping

What does that mean?

 

[Chaz]

Originally posted by maddogkf
I just installed a McAfee's anti-virus software & firewall

The firewall says things like this:

2003/08/21 17:28:22 68.108.248.239:0 (ip68-108-248-239.sb.sd.cox.net) 68.109.187.214:0 ICMP Ping

What does that mean?

These entries are just records of computers trying to connect to yours. The number (68.108.248.239) is the other computers IP address. ICMP Ping is the type of connection being attempted.
The other number is your IP (Should be the same on all the records)

The Firewall should be blocking all these attempts now so nothing really to worry about.

 

[maddogkf]

Why would people try to connect to my computer?

How do they do that?

 

[Chaz]

It may not be people are trying to do it. Some windows services try to discover computers around them. Sometimes viruses people don't know they have are trying to infect other computers.

And somtimes wannabe hackers are checking to see what computers are open to certain attacks. Real hackers are probably not attacking cox cable modem customers unless they want to try and take over computers to attack somone esle.

If you see a lot of attempts from a particular IP address it is probably a virus or a hacker. Just random connection attempts from various IPs is nothing to worry about it is the traffic of the internet.

It is why you have a firewall to block this traffic malicious or otherwise.

 

[PortlandCardFan]

Originally posted by maddogkf
I just installed a McAfee's anti-virus software & firewall

The firewall says things like this:

2003/08/21 17:28:22 68.108.248.239:0 (ip68-108-248-239.sb.sd.cox.net) 68.109.187.214:0 ICMP Ping

What does that mean?

Is cox.net your ISP?

It looks to me like they were testing links. Nothing to worry about really. ICMP packets are used to test connectivity between nodes on an IP network.

It is kinda like yelling into a crowd "Hey mike... are you out there" (The device sending the ping) and you reply "yeah mike... maddog here" (your PC repling to the ping). Pinging can be malicious though i.e. "Ping of Death". If memory serves me correctly "Ping of Death" is nothing more than trying to overload the server with ICMP packets.

Okay this is way to much technobabel..... sorry once I get on a roll you need to put a fork in me

SirChaz is correct as well