svchost.exe & Internet Access

  • Thread starter Thread starter Dino
  • Start date Start date
D

Dino

Hello Everyone:
I have Windows XP Pro in my machine and I also installed
McAfee Firewall Express. McAfee Firewall Express has
blocked svchost.exe to access the Internet and I wonder
if I need to allow this application to have access to the
Internet or not? I read the svchost.exe article on the
Microsoft knowledgebase and know what it is or what it
does but nowhere in that article tells me whether I
should allow svchost.exe to go online or not. I
appreciate any input.
 
Dino said:
Hello Everyone:
I have Windows XP Pro in my machine and I also installed
McAfee Firewall Express. McAfee Firewall Express has
blocked svchost.exe to access the Internet and I wonder
if I need to allow this application to have access to the
Internet or not? I read the svchost.exe article on the
Microsoft knowledgebase and know what it is or what it
does but nowhere in that article tells me whether I
should allow svchost.exe to go online or not. I
appreciate any input.
Click to expand...

I have seen posts for people with more knowlege than me and they say to
allow it.
However when I first got XP almost three years ago I had it blocked and
didn't notice any adverse affects.
NOTE: Many viruses can have a similar name.
 
Dino,

I held off, hoping someone could answer a little better than
I......but.......

The svchost.exe is a Microsoft program that is a part of the operating
system. It doesn't do anything itself, but it loads DLLs, wrapping them in
it's exe and runs them as an application (that's the "host" part - they
"host" a DLL).

I don't know of any applications that make it easy to see which DLL the
svchost.exe is running, but sometimes it is a DLL used by a virus or trojan.
Most of the time Windows uses it for harmless chit-chat with Microsoft and
for internet communications.

However, if it is svchosts.exe (note the plural form) it is a Trojan.
See http://www.liutilities.com/products/wintaskspro/processlibrary/svchosts/
for more details.

There are free tools available on www.sysinternals.com that can help you
look at these svchost.exe processes and even see the DLL that is being
called from a DOS window.

I would suggest scanning your system with a good antivirus program like
NOD32 and running Spysweeper from Webroot.

Just the other day I had a customer call about a virus (Bagle.Z) that
shut down Norton and McAfee whenever they would attempt to launch, but we
caught it with Spysweeper.

Good luck!

Jim Hubbard
 
Back
Top