Thread: Continuous hack attempts.

I changed the mode of the modem today, so that while earlier when I switched on the modem, it would automatically connect to the net, now I have to manually type in the username and password in windows.

I did this just today, and now I am facing a lot of hack attempts: ZoneAlarm keeps giving messages of having blocked access attempts from different IPs:

193.138.232.17
118.168.135.86
222.216.28.168
10.10.49.220
213.234.219.11
122.116.17.131
218.165.128.76
61.92.52.107
59.95.14.154
59.95.128.161
77.122.203.46

122.116.112.163
61.92.52.107
122.116.17.131
59.95.14.154
118.167.130.5

Most of these are from somewhere in Taiwan / China / Hong Kong, but one or two are of India (shown as Pune)!

1st: Does this have anything to do with my changing the modem mode?

2nd: When the IP is shown as Indian, does it really mean that it is someone from India who is trying to hack? Is it possible that someone from Taiwan, etc is using a software that makes it looks as if he / she is in India? Bcoz there are softwares that change your IP, so that it looks as if you are accessing the net from France or Malaysia. I am not sure if these softwares really do what they claim to do, because I once used a software, and then when I googled for my IP, most sites fell in for the trick and showed that I was in some other country, but one or two sites showed two IPs: one was my real IP, and the other was the fake one, shown as a proxy IP. Does anyone know of any working software that will hide the IP? Actually, is there any need for such stuff, if all you do is check mails and download from Rapidshare / Torrent?

Yes you are right

This will happen if you change the config of your router to modem and dial
I had read it some where in one of the forum that if you configure the router as modem and dial it it will disable NATing and this will expose your original IP to the world

I would like to warn you that this will have more possibility of virus attack and hacks

but if you have a good firewall like zone alarm and a good anti virus you should be OK

but don't connect to the net with out these else your comp will vaporise in few hours

all these hack attempts relies on exploting some services running on some open ports.if you know you are not running any services on vulnerable ports then you are safe for almost all the times.also regularly update your windows.security updates don't require windows to be genuine so even a pirated windows will get the security updates.i am not using any firewall at the moment as i have already checked my computer for all open ports & i know i am not running any services on those ports but i will install a firewall in coming days.

How do I know what all ports are open on my computer, and how to close them? The only thing that I know of is that I had portforwarded for Utorrent, and that too on a different operation system (I have two OS, Win XP Pro and Win XP Home).

What do you people suggest: should I roll back to the previous auto-connect method, or are there any advantages of this manual connect method? (The only reason I changed to manual connect is because firstly my modem had been continously restarting, so I thought that the problem might go away by this solution, although it doesnt seem to have done so: because I do face disconnects even now, though they seem to be lesser in frequency. I did this also because my modem is lying a little distance away, and to renew the IP (to download from RapidShare without waiting for an hour), I have to manually switch off and switch on the modem, which I thought might not be a good thing and might damage the modem in the long run; now I can directly disconnect and connect to the net; and previously, the modem would take a minute to start, while now I reconnect five seconds after disconnecting, and the net starts working immediately.)

And what are these Windows security updates? I have disabled automatic updates in Windows; I thought that is the correct thing to do, I've read about it in quite a few places. I do update Bitdefender about once a month.

After connecting your computer to internet, type 'netstat -an' in cmd and press enter. It will show you the list of ports that are opened and are listening in your machine

Proto Local Address Foreign Address State
TCP 0.0.0.0:12127 0.0.0.0:0 LISTENING
TCP 192.168.4.1:4590 116.215.3.3:135 ESTABLISHED
.
.

Then you list down the ports in seperate sheet (12127,4590)and find what type of service involved in opening each port. Findout unnecessary ports and block all those unnecessary ports in your Windows Firewall.

Windows update and Antivirus update are must. Port blocking alone wont provide security.

U r using bridge mode and all the ports are open in bridge mode. U dont even need to forward ports for utorrent or ne other P2P

Turn zonealarm firewall to "AUTO" mode .. so that it stops giving alerts

Turn on windows updates and keep ur firewall and antivirus updated. No worries