Phil Harrison

It's necessary to 'Trust' a whole variety of Apps which require outbound access to the internet. Is there a Freeware App which monitors and lists what's actually been reported back 'legitimately', especially in the way of specific files held on my HDD?

??

Phil

jpor

iTrader: (1)

I used to know a website that would check your firewall for holes . Forgotten what it's called now. Try a search on Google.

mike1210

yeah there's a few that monitor firewall holes.

www.grc.com and shields up service

http://scan.sygatetech.com/

www.auditmypc.com

also if you want something free to monitor outgoing traffic the free version of zone alarm does that

jpor

iTrader: (1)

A gold star for that man

ozzy

The reason you may want to monitor outgoing traffic is to stop any malware or spyware programs from "calling home" and using your bandwidth. Also monitors some trusted software that may be reporting back to servers without your permission.

Phil Harrison

Thanks guys - so far!! Testing the firewall for holes isn't what I had in mind.... it's monitoring what actually does leave (with my permission in principle. For example by DRM controlled applications.

I seem to remember a long while ago there was an utility which examiond outgoing packets, and stopped any containg (say) your Credit Card Number. I'm thinking of a more modern equivalent....

Any further advances??

Cheers

Phil

mike1210

I assume you mean didgital rights managment

The free zone alarm firewall does watch outgoing traffic

e.g so and so is trying to access the net, do you want to allow, block etc

I believe the best software firewalls (on a sensible budget) to be Zone Alarm Pro and Outpost, which provide decent inspection of outgoing traffic. Im not 100% sure on how far they will dig into packets as I haven't used software firewalls for a while but I would say they are your best bet.

Chris L

The best thing to do is install a decent firewall - any of the ones mentioned will do. Then turn off automatic permissions for all outgoing connections. Normally you can select that the firewall has to ask your permission before establishing a connection. That way, you can at least check what programs are requesting outbound connections. Just by typing the name of the program or file into Google should reveal whether it is a legit program or some dodgy spyware.

Also make sure that your AV software is up to date and you've got a decent anit spyware package installed. If you haven't got either of these, then install them first before worrying about the outbound connections through your firewall.

If in doubt, block it, you can always enable the traffic flow at a later date if required.

Chris

James Neill

iTrader: (1)

Kerio Firewall lists the programmes and filenames actually communicating out to the internet and any point in time plus transfer rate. Interesting to see what programs do what.

Edited to say that Kerio also lets you enable/disable comms on a program by program basis. I think most firewalls let you do this but Kerio make it easy.