Zone Alarm/Basic

Question

I just downloaded and installed the free version of Zone Alarm. I really would like to understand just what it is doing. I keep getting Alerts such as listed below.

"Zone Alarm has successfully stopped local network or internet traffic from reaching your computer. No breach in your security has occurred. Your computer is safe. Zone Alarm blocked traffic to port 1026 on your machine from port 46705 on a remote computer whose IP address is 69.47.6.27. This communication attempt may have been a port scan, or simply one of the millions of unsolicited commericial or network control messages that are routinely sent out over the internet. Such insolicited messages are often called Internet background noise."

What does all this mean? I get these Alerts every couple of minutes. (I know I can turn them off, but I am just tracking just how often they occur.) Are this many people trying to gain access to my computer?

Does anyone know how reliable Zone Labs is today? Do the updates come on a regular basis? Thanks for any info you can give me.

Flooby · Answer

You're just the sort of user who doesn't need Zone Alarm. Windows XP has a built in firewall that will stop the typical attempts to hack the average system. It won't bombard you with popups, it won't waste a fraction of the system resources that ZA will, and you don't have to understand it or respond to prompts or configure it to benefit from it. Just turn it on, and let it work. Someone will probably respond that XP's firewall doesn't stop outbound traffic, but as long as your system is free of P2P apps and spyware (easily determined through regular use of AdAware and/or Spybot Search and Destroy), you don't really have to worry about using anything else.

If your system isn't free of P2P apps and spyware, you're probably going to have more immediately pressing concerns to worry about just cleaning up after those sorts of things.

BBlackie · Answer

You should turn off the alert notifications. If you don't have fundamental knowledge of network traffic and can't distinguish between hacking and background noise, then the alerts are just an annoyance. You can also check for updates within ZA, but they don't update often.

And I do disagree with Flooby. Having knowledge of outbound traffic will alert you to spyware that either isn't really classified as such by Adaware and Spybot (such as RealPlayer and Qucktime) or haven't been added to their updates. And apparently Microsoft agrees to that since they are updating their Firewall in SP2 to also monitor outbound traffic.

Flooby · Answer

BBlackie wrote:And apparently Microsoft agrees to that since they are updating their Firewall in SP2 to also monitor outbound traffic.

All the more reason to refrain from installing a 3rd party app.

Security starts with the user, and the first stop is education, not another application. It's up to the user to be aware of and to control which installed apps phone home/send outbound traffic, and one doesn't necessarily need a firewall to accomplish this, nor should one depend implictly on a firewall to do so. I run a firewall to prevent the outside from getting in, and take care of managing what might be trying to send out myself. To do otherwise is just plain irresponsible, and is asking for trouble. What point is there in worrying about what's transpiring on the outside, if you have no knowledge or control over what's going on inside? If a user installed app automatically configures a firewall to allow it to phone home, and if the user doesn't know any better than to not allow this, you can forget about who's trying to get in from the outside, because you'll be doing all the damage yourself.

msgale · Answer

Right On  - Education is the key,  'How do you know that those who post know anything more than you do' now I will proceed to shoot myself in the foot, incl;uding me. Message Edited by msgale on 03-18-2004 03:46 PM

BBlackie · Answer

Point taken, however how would a novice know what was trying to phone home? I agree that education is key, but in the case of neophytes, they wouldn't have a clue that RealPlayer routinely phones home. With the firewall installed, they will become educated as to which programs are phoning home.

By Flooby's logic, I would say that NO firewall is needed, just a router. The amount of resources consumed by ZoneAlarm is neglible in comparison. I have a router, so if I could get a firewall devoted ONLY to outbound traffic, I'd prefer that.

alphag33k2 · Answer

Came across your posting in a search. This is a late reply but hey!
To answer your question you are fine when you first install ZA this happens. It will stop after a day or so. ZoneAlarm is a very good product, the best you can get for free and it revials most others. It is very reliable and is updated regularly.

I personally do not like XP's firewall, but I am a control freak. I think outgoing traffic control is just important as incoming. It is almost impossible to surf and not get leeched by spyware. Just going to MSN you get adware.

If you do use Zone Alarm make sure the XP firewall is disabled running both can cause problems.

jwatt · Answer

Zone Alarm blocked traffic to port 1026 on your machine from port 46705 on a remote computer whose IP address is 69.47.6.27. This communication attempt may have been a port scan, or simply one of the millions of unsolicited commericial or network control messages that are routinely sent out over the internet.

Kasey,

That particular alert occurred because ZoneAlarm blocked an attempt to connect to your PC's "messenger" service. Here's an article describing "Messenger popup spam", found by searching Google for port 1026.

I get these Alerts every couple of minutes. (I know I can turn them off, but I am just tracking just how often they occur.) Are this many people trying to gain access to my computer?

Those really aren't people. Rather, they're programs run by people. The programs attempt to send "Messenger popup spam" and other unwanted data to many machines on the Internet. The entire process is a waste of time and network bandwidth. If logging and reporting such activities helps people to understand the importance of installing firewall protection, that's a benefit!

Jim

Kasey6465 · Answer

How do I know whether XP's Firewall is on or not?

alphag33k2 · Answer

Right Click 'My Network Places' and choose 'Properties'Then right click your 'Local Area Connection' icon and choose 'Properties'Choose the 'Advanced' TabUn-check the box to disable the XP firewall.

Windows General

Zone Alarm/Basic

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