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From: Jeffrey Goldberg on 22 Jun 2010 01:52
On 10-06-21 3:08 PM, Phillip Jones wrote:

> I went to the Mac Troubleshooting section of the website and run across
> the following: (notice what I have highlighted in the screenshot)
>
> http://screencast.com/t/NzQwNzIyYjUt
>
> It does not have a Router Built in.

Thanks for checking into that. I strongly advise you to turn on your
firewall in OS X to "Block all incoming connections". You can do this
in System Preferences > Security > Firewall and clicking on the
"Advanced" button. You will see a check box for what I am recommending.

Do that straight away. Before you even finish reading this message.

Once that is done, you should buy a simple router. You don't need Wi-Fi
(unless you plan on getting other machines including an iPhone or the
like), and you don't need Gigabit switching. Basically you need the
simplest, cheapest router available.

They all do something called Network Address Translation (NAT) and part
of that process really seals of your local network (in this case your
local network is composed of your Mac and half of the router) from the
external network (which includes the other half of your router and the
big bad world).

Again, I don't wish to alarm you, as it did seem like Virgin Media were
providing NAT just a bit further out from your location. So it may only
be a small chunk of the big bad world that can probe and scan your Mac.
As an experiment, put your Mac to sleep and watch to see whether the
recv light on your cable modem flickers. Every time it does, that means
that something from the outside is trying to scan or probe whatever you
might connect to that cable modem.

I get several such probes of per second. It's a normal part of being
connected to the Internet. Fortunately, a router doing NAT takes care
of all of that for you, so those never get very far. (I have actually
configured my router to log those probes, and I send of a summery of
those logs to http://www.dshield.org/reports.html ) The overwhelming
majority of those automated probes are looking for Windows
vulnerabilities, but that doesn't mean that they all are.

I'll leave it to others who are more local to you to make
recommendations about where to get a router. Just don't let someone
sell you more than you need.

Cheers,

-j

--
Jeffrey Goldberg http://goldmark.org/jeff/
I rarely read HTML or poorly quoting posts
Reply-To address is valid
From: Mike Lane on 22 Jun 2010 04:03
Jeffrey Goldberg wrote on Jun 22, 2010:

> On 10-06-21 3:08 PM, Phillip Jones wrote:
>
>> I went to the Mac Troubleshooting section of the website and run across
>> the following: (notice what I have highlighted in the screenshot)
>>
>> http://screencast.com/t/NzQwNzIyYjUt
>>
>> It does not have a Router Built in.
>
> Thanks for checking into that. I strongly advise you to turn on your
> firewall in OS X to "Block all incoming connections". You can do this
> in System Preferences > Security > Firewall and clicking on the
> "Advanced" button. You will see a check box for what I am recommending.
>
> Do that straight away. Before you even finish reading this message.
>
> Once that is done, you should buy a simple router. You don't need Wi-Fi
> (unless you plan on getting other machines including an iPhone or the
> like), and you don't need Gigabit switching. Basically you need the
> simplest, cheapest router available.
>
> They all do something called Network Address Translation (NAT) and part
> of that process really seals of your local network (in this case your
> local network is composed of your Mac and half of the router) from the
> external network (which includes the other half of your router and the
> big bad world).
>
> Again, I don't wish to alarm you, as it did seem like Virgin Media were
> providing NAT just a bit further out from your location. So it may only
> be a small chunk of the big bad world that can probe and scan your Mac.
> As an experiment, put your Mac to sleep and watch to see whether the
> recv light on your cable modem flickers. Every time it does, that means
> that something from the outside is trying to scan or probe whatever you
> might connect to that cable modem.
>
> I get several such probes of per second. It's a normal part of being
> connected to the Internet. Fortunately, a router doing NAT takes care
> of all of that for you, so those never get very far. (I have actually
> configured my router to log those probes, and I send of a summery of
> those logs to http://www.dshield.org/reports.html ) The overwhelming
> majority of those automated probes are looking for Windows
> vulnerabilities, but that doesn't mean that they all are.
>
> I'll leave it to others who are more local to you to make
> recommendations about where to get a router. Just don't let someone
> sell you more than you need.
>

Thanks very much for your trouble and concern on my behalf. I'll carry out
all your recommendations ASAP.

FWIW I haven't actually been able to catch the Recv light on my modem
flickering when my Mac is shut down or sleeping. That's not to say it doesn't
occasionally, of course.


--
Mike Lane
UK North Yorkshire
email: mike_lane at mac dot com

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