Firewalls...Hardware ones and Program ones

Hey Geeks.

I posted a thread a couple of days ago asking a question about Zone Alarm. Rather than rehashing that here, I'd rather ask another firewall related question.

First some situation background. I'm running a Gateway Solo 2500 (400 Celeron, 296 RAM, Windows98se) at work. I'm hooking up to a office network cable to access the internet. I am assuming that there is a router and a couple of hubs buried under and within the desks in the office allowing me to accesss the cable connection to the net. I am also running Kerio PF, I was previously running ZA and then Outpost before switching again. With all programs, when I run PC Flank's "stealth test" I keep coming up "un-stealthed." When I run the trojan test, various ports come up as "closed" rather than "stealthed" (except port 35, which is open).

My question is this: would the router (presumably) used here at the office be the one causing the closed ports and the un-stealthed appearance?

 

That depends. Do you run a server at your office? If so, you might have ports forwarded to it. OR you might have DMZ to this server computer.

The test you are doing is testing the router rather than your personal computer, I presume, if you are using NAT. If you're not using NAT (which acts as a firewall) then your firewall isnt working correclty (also known as an edgless network, where your company is granted a range of IP addresses, rather than sharing just one).

To me, it sounds like one machine has DMZ (any unsolicited connections are forwarded to this machine) and this machine doesnt have a firewall running (OOPS!)

By the way, I *think* Port 35 is a Cisco management port.. which really shouldnt be open to the outside world!!

 

Nice link Halo me man!

But... if he is using NAT, then all ports should be shown as stealth, not closed. And if he is DMZed then the firewall would show it as stealth. Which is why I thought that perhaps another machine is DMZed, like a server for example.

Out of interest, what port scan utility are you using?