Mysterious network activity.

[Sebastian42]

I have a broadband connection through an ethernet cable to my PC running WinME. The LEDs on my network card are in view, so I know that usually the green one is constantly on, and the amber one blinks at a sedate rate. When I am actually uploading or downloading data, that blink rate increases. Sometimes, even if my email client (Outlook Express6) and browser (Firefox 2.0.0.20) are NOT open, the amber light blinks furiously - suggesting to me that data transfer is occurring. But WHAT and WHERE TO or WHERE FROM is a mystery to me. My obsolete but age-compatible firewall, Sygate Personal Firewall has entries in its traffic log that are 5 minutes behind current time, so can't tell me what is happening NOW. It however does seem to store about 24hrs worth of data. (How) can I find out what the 'unauthorised' or mystery internet traffic is about ?

 

[muckshifter]

Modems/Routers directly connected to the internet are constantly bombarded from the outside world with all kinds of 'unauthorised' queries. Some of it is legit, like your ISP, others are from nasties seeking unprotected systems.

I would not loose any sleep over it, unless your using unpatched, out-of-date software.


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