Technical article not only addressed to network administrators but also to normal users and people who use the computer to work or play. The security and network arguments always go hand in hand because it is known that a computer connected to the internet is always, inevitably, in danger of being hit by viruses or external intrusions.
A computer must never be open to receive data from anyone and must remain protected either by a well-configured router or by a firewall (see the best free Firewalls )
When we talk about TCP / IP and UDP connections or open ports, we mean, in very practical terms, that a program is sending data or receiving it.
A door is nothing more than a numerical address on which a program communicates; for example, the standard port for the internet browser is 80, that for e-mail instead are typically 25 for sending emails and 110 for receiving.
As soon as you turn on a PC and connect it to the internet, some programs go to talk to the outside to work.
Let's see how to see which of these software, applications or processes is communicating, which port they are using and whether they are authorized to do it or not.
In technical terms, it is a question of monitoring open TCP and UDP connections .
TCPEye is a free program among the best, most complete and, at the same time, easy to use and understand that it has found to date.
It works on Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7 and on all Server versions.
On the main window there is the list of processes and programs that have opened an external connection .
In addition to the file name, data relating to the local address used (that of your computer), the remote address (where it connects), the status (whether it is exchanging data or not), the protocol (tcpv4 or tcpv6) are also indicated., the country in which that program is connecting, the path of the complete file to find it on the computer, the name of the product, the name of the company, the description of the and the version of the file.
If you right-click on any process you will find a number of options.
The most important is the one that allows you to resolve a network address with an understandable name.
In this way, the series of numbers that make up an address is translated into words and it becomes much easier to understand who a process is and what a network is doing.
You can also view all the endpoints or all the connection points of the computer, including those that are not communicating.
Each process can be terminated from TCPEye as it would be done by the task manager and for each of them it is possible to verify who launched that process (in the case of computers shared by multiple users), know the information with the Whois service (who is "> Moo0Connetcion Watcher to see the connections and ports open on the computer.
