What if no firewall when using eDonkey or Kazaa?

I found I had left my firewall disabled by mistake.

I have been running my Overnet (file sharing) software for about 24
hours. What risks have I been taking?

Is it really necessary to always run a firewall when using file
sharing applications like Overnet, eDonkey or Kazaa?

Piotr Makley

Piotr Makley wrote:

> I found I had left my firewall disabled by mistake.
>
> I have been running my Overnet (file sharing) software for about 24
> hours. What risks have I been taking?
>
> Is it really necessary to always run a firewall when using file
> sharing applications like Overnet, eDonkey or Kazaa?
Hi,

this has nothing to do with kazaa and so on, because these deamons you
expose to the internet anyways. It depends which other services you have
running on your external interface. If there is a nfs server running, and
you don't have a ip range set, you have a high risk. If you turn of all
deamons except your file sharing deamons, no firewall is necessary at all.

Regards, Alex

Alexander Harsch

"Piotr Makley" <> wrote in message
news: s.com...
> I found I had left my firewall disabled by mistake.
>
> I have been running my Overnet (file sharing) software for about 24
> hours. What risks have I been taking?
>
> Is it really necessary to always run a firewall when using file
> sharing applications like Overnet, eDonkey or Kazaa?

Running a software firewall is just a really good idea, but if your system
is up to date on all the MS patches, you are likely just fine following this
24-hour lapse. During that period of time however, you were visible online
to every script kiddie with a port scanner. If you want to see how
vulnerable (or not) your system is with the firewall disabled, visit
http://www.grc.com and click on "Shields U&p" for a very quick and thorough
(but completely harmless) scan of your system. Do it twice- once with your
firewall disabled and then once with it enabled, just for the sake of
comparison.

Regards,
Ian.

Ionizer

Piotr Makley wrote:

> I found I had left my firewall disabled by mistake.
>
> I have been running my Overnet (file sharing) software for about 24
> hours. What risks have I been taking?
>
> Is it really necessary to always run a firewall when using file
> sharing applications like Overnet, eDonkey or Kazaa?
>

I say the two are separate issues, firewalls are trained to allow
programs to send and receive packets by you so you can tell your
firewall to allow Kazaa etc to run through the firewall. Of course these
act as server software and can be very dangerous since you allow things
to come through your firewall without you initiating the request if you
allow uploading. Kazaa checks for viruses worms and trojans, I do not
know if Overnet does. Your AV will probably scan the file also.

Without a firewall you are wide open, not just the apps you allow to go
through the firewall but to everything attempting to access your system.

g-w

zz

"Jim Grimmett" <> wrote:

> "Piotr Makley" <> wrote:
>>
>> Is it really necessary to always run a firewall when using
>> file sharing applications like Overnet, eDonkey or Kazaa?
>
> I'd shorten this to "Q:Is it really necessary to always run a
> firewall"
>
> A: Yes.


Then the next short question is .... why?



[groups restored]

Piotr Makley

Piotr Makley schrieb:
> "Jim Grimmett" <> wrote:
>>"Piotr Makley" <> wrote:
>>>Is it really necessary to always run a firewall when using
>>>file sharing applications like Overnet, eDonkey or Kazaa?
>>
>>I'd shorten this to "Q:Is it really necessary to always run a
>>firewall"
>>
>>A: Yes.
>
> Then the next short question is .... why?

Well, I would say: no. It is not always necessary. It is necessary if
you have services running on your computer that listen on ports of the
interface connected to the internet but that you don't want to be
accesible from the internet. Which then leads to the question: why would
you have the service running like that in the first place?

So my answer is "no": if you shutdown all unnecessary services on your
computer that usually listen to the network or at least do not bind them
to the interface connected to the internet then you are perfectly
safe. The risks you take when using any of the file sharing applications
then remain the same with or without firewall because only those
applications will listen to the internet (i.a.w. the firewall would have
nothing to do in this scenario...)

Gerald

Gerald Vogt

"Piotr Makley" <> wrote in message
news: s.com...
> I found I had left my firewall disabled by mistake.
>
> I have been running my Overnet (file sharing) software for about 24
> hours. What risks have I been taking?
>
> Is it really necessary to always run a firewall when using file
> sharing applications like Overnet, eDonkey or Kazaa?
>
Hi, I think I would scan my computer with the AV, Spybot S&D, and
AdAware, after I enabled my Firewall. I'd go to grc.com and scan with
Shield'sUp port scanner to make sure my firewall was still protecting
the computer.

If you're connected to the Internet, you need a firewall.

charlie R

charlie R

"charlie R" <> wrote in message news:<c83qs4$qmj$>...
>
> If you're connected to the Internet, you need a firewall.
>

i agree. if msblaster and sasser aren't good enough arguments for
having a firewall, i don't know what is.

miner

On 15 May 2004 02:06:30 -0700, (miner) wrote:

>> If you're connected to the Internet, you need a firewall.
>>
>
>i agree. if msblaster and sasser aren't good enough arguments for
>having a firewall, i don't know what is.

They are good arguments for protecting yourself. We've been
discussing whether a firewall is a necessary part of this protection.

Laurence Payne

"miner" wrote...
> "charlie R"...
>>
>> If you're connected to the Internet, you need a firewall.

> i agree. if msblaster and sasser aren't good enough arguments for
> having a firewall, i don't know what is.

I think they're good arguments for closing the NetBT and RPC ports
that Windows likes to listen on - which is what I have done. I run
no firewall, and am not troubled by these exploits.

Of course, if you're prone to downloading and running malware, a
firewall might be useful.

Ant