Got paranoid when I found my son had been remotely reading my email. Changed my password but started worrying about hacking. Downloaded personal version of Sygate but all it does is show me I'm being hacked - doesn't prevent it. Someone from Asia has been hacking my comp. ever since I've had this turned on. Sygate gives me : Somebody is scanning your computer. Your computer's TCP ports: 139, 143, 443, and 1080 have been scanned from 206.204.51.131.. What's going on and where do I go from here? HELP!! Trippsmom

I had the same thing with Sygate. I don't think they offer support for the free personal version anymore. I was told it was just doing it's job? I finally changed over to Comodo free professional firewall and haven't looked back yet. Hope that helps Hopefully my advice will help you...Please post back with your results....thanks

trippsmom, Port scans are not unusual and not really something to worry about as long as the firewall is blocking them. I think I read you said you are on dial up, is that right? When I was on dial up, I had port scans all the time, but my firewall blocked any intrustions. Now with broadband and a router, I don't get port scans reported by the firewall --they are blocked by the router. XpUser4Real is correct that Sygate is no longer supported. The company was bought by Symantec last year. There are some free firewalls you can use that are up to date. ZoneAlarm and Comodo have free versions, and Kerio has a free version. There is a trial where all the features work and after the trial expires, the program still works but with a few less features. There's a lot of good info about firewalls here: http://www.firewallguide.com/ Suzi Spyware Warrior MS MVP Windows-Security 2005 - 2007

Sure. In fact, by reporting this information, the firewall really is "just doing it's job(?)" - while these warnings can cause undue concern amongst novice users, there should be an option to disable 'nonthreatening' messages

Bugmenot2, true, but probably not in unsupported versions Hopefully my advice will help you...Please post back with your results....thanks

Bugmenot2 wrote: "In fact, by reporting this information, the firewall really is "just doing it's job" Exactly. They are just knocking at the door, but not allowed to come in. Anyway, you should always have all critical updates for Windows and also use i.e. 'Windows Worm Door Cleaner' to close some pesky ports from your system. You can get WWDC from here: http://www.firewallleaktester.com/w... Note: Do not close NetBIOS or you can lose internet connection.

#4 Well, I can't speak for all firewalls, but you'd think most (if not all) would have the option to disable no risk/low risk warnings like that, since they're more of a nuisance than an aid. All that stuff is usually logged anyways. It all boils down to the individual options for that particular software. Some might have "show all possible threats" as the default in order to 'prove' the firewall is working, but that'd be more of a marketing ploy. Either they work or they don't, and that can be determined by testing, like at Shields Up Hey suzi, it's good to see you back here again