Router firewall. Am I safe leaving open ports 6881-6883 for bittorrent ?

Question

I opened 6881-6883 ports on my router (firewall) and also port 44850 (UDP).

Should I be worried that other people can get in to my pc through these ports which are opened to allow bittorrent access. Are these open ports like a big obvious inviting way in to my pc for any malicious hacker type person ?

"Shields Up" confirms these ports are open.
http://www.grc.com/default.htm

I recently uninstalled zone alarm cause i've got a router firewall... would it be worthwhile reinstalling it to help stop anyone getting in if they can get in my open ports ?

Thanks if you can help. :)

Thank you. Within the last 20 minutes I've now reinstalled the latest Zone Alarm.

Answer 1

I believe the answers above are convoluted and incomplete. Opening ports does reduce security, in that if you have no open ports you're more security by obscurity, but if everybody or every organization simply closed all ports to create security no traffic could come in at all... not even good traffic.

I don't know if Zone Alarm has any intrusion detection functionality or if it's strictly a firewall. If it's only a firewall, then it would make much of a difference. Installing it would mean you'd have to open up those ports in that app as well, which would defeat the purpose.

Also note that having those ports open through your router makes no difference if your PC isn't listening on those ports. If you don't have the application open, your PC won't respond to those ports anyway, so it makes little difference whether the ports are open on the router when you aren't using the application.

I haven't heard of any vulnerabilities in the latest bittorrent software, but that's something you might want to keep an eye out for. A major vulnerability announcement would leave you open to external attack.

Generally speaking, I think opening those ports is safe enough, provided you remain aware that they are there and whether any security announcements are made with your client. Installing Zone Alarm might not be a bad idea after all if you use that as your method of closing those ports when you aren't using them. It's much easier than making changes to your router every time you want to use the software. And, of course, if it DOES have intrusion detection capability there is some added security to having it around.

Hope this helps.

Answer 2

Open ports are like leaving your front door open with all you valuables on show some one will break in, reinstall zone alarm straight away then bittorrent use the net never rely on just a router to protect you you need a firewall as well

Answer 3

Seems your answering your own questions and just want verification... ok
Yes leaving ports open does make your computer more vulnerable. if a hacker is scanning ip's now yours will come up, with some ports open now your computer lets the net know of your existance. Of course bit torrent offers stuff to you but i would close them ports whenever your not downloading.
the zone alarm is a nice back up firewall as it monitors programs trying to access internet and will let you know if something malicious got in and is trying to do sneaky stuff, you may have to adjust it to allow the bit torrent to work but i would put it back.

Answer 4

Leaving any ports open is un-wise & un-safe.

Answer 5

Speak to your ISP, they may be able to help you configure your Firewall.