Opening Ports - Is it safe?

Hello Guys,

I have a program called Netcam Studio Server which is a program that uses web cams and IP camera's to monitor your house, there is an iPhone app which is supposed to connect to the program to monitor the cams but I can't get it to work.

I have contacted them and they have advised me I need to open 3 ports (8100,8124,8120), firstly is it safe to open these ports, they've said it is and it won't lead to security threads since these ports are not specific assigned
for any essential services of windows. Would you guys agree with this and say I am safe to open them.

I have opened them on my router but I still can't get the app to connect, when I go to Shieldsup! (https://www.grc.com/x/ne.dll?bh0bkyd2) website it shows the ports as closed, I followed the instructions for my router on this page for Webcam XP which a previous version but I used the 3 ports for Netcam Studio instead :- Port Forwarding the Sagem Fast_2504n-Sky Router for WebcamXP

Do you think that the ports showing closed could possibly be my problem, before I opened them they were not visible and were in "stealth" mode, if so how can I open them further?.

Thanks for reading

Tony

I've just done another Shieldsup! scan and it's now showing Port 99 as open, I've closed the 3 ports (8100,8124,8120) that I opened but it's still showing port 99 as open.

Could someone go to https://www.grc.com/x/ne.dll?bh0bkyd2 Shieldsup! web site and scan their system to see if their port 99 or Open, if not how can I close it?

Thanks

Tony

I've found the open port 99 problem, it was my IP Camera that uses port 99, if I unplug it the port does not show open, if use PFPortchecker it said that another device is using port 99

Basically opening any port gives an attacker another port to try to exploit, so it is a personal decision whether the benefit outweighs the minimal risk for an uncommon port...

But, remember, a refrigerator was hacked and used to send spam recently, so keep all of your devices patched.

If you have windows firewall running it may still be blocking the ports you need. In the past when I have installed server software on my PC windows firewall will pipe up and ask if it should allow traffic to/from the server. Did you ever see messages like this? I am not familiar enough with windows firewall to describe how to manually allow traffic on the ports, maybe someone else here can point you in the right direction.

Regarding safety, an open port is only as safe as the software handling its traffic. Every PC has port 80 open; we (mostly) trust our web browsers to safely handle traffic on that port. I would google around for the name and company of the software for your camera see if you can find any negative info on how secure it is. For instance, I remember recent stories about some IP cameras do not implement password security properly and open up your camera images to the world. That would be bad, mmm-kay?

Every PC has port 80 open; we (mostly) trust our web browsers to safely handle traffic on that port.

Click to expand...

of course not, unless you are running web server this port should be closed. Web browsing does not require port 80 to be open

By default all ports are closed and this causes no problems for normal Internet use. A firewall takes this a step further so that ports are not only closed but invisible to an outside scan. There is no indication that there is even a computer at the IP address scanned. Obviously this is of no interest to a hacker, but has no issues for normal Internet use.

But if the computer needs to accept connections from the outside you need at least one visible and open port. A scan will reveal that there is a computer on the other end (interesting to a hacker) and that it is accepting connections (even better). This attracts hackers who will then attempt to find an exploitable weakness. That is the risk of having visible and open ports.

Hello Mike,

I have allowed the Program permission through the Firewall so I don't think it's that. I have set a Password up on the camera, it's would be very exciting viewing if a hacker decided to hack it!.

mikeytg said:

If you have windows firewall running it may still be blocking the ports you need. In the past when I have installed server software on my PC windows firewall will pipe up and ask if it should allow traffic to/from the server. Did you ever see messages like this? I am not familiar enough with windows firewall to describe how to manually allow traffic on the ports, maybe someone else here can point you in the right direction.

Regarding safety, an open port is only as safe as the software handling its traffic. Every PC has port 80 open; we (mostly) trust our web browsers to safely handle traffic on that port. I would google around for the name and company of the software for your camera see if you can find any negative info on how secure it is. For instance, I remember recent stories about some IP cameras do not implement password security properly and open up your camera images to the world. That would be bad, mmm-kay?

Click to expand...