Maintaining a safe and secure computer isn’t a process that can be singularly defined. Instead, security is often a layered approach – a compilation of best practices and software-based safety-nets. Novice users have likely heard and already practice the concept of running anti-virus with a firewall. At a minimum, this forms the foundation of basic security and safe computing. However, as our familiarity and experience with computers evolves it’s not long before we realize that knowledge is the enemy of any potential Internet threat vector.
MooO ConnectionWatcher is another weapon in your fight against would be attackers. ConnectionWatcher is a free portable utility that assembles a detailed list of all currently running applications that are communicating across the Internet. If you are using Windows built-in firewall, you’ve likely come across a few prompts for application or port exclusion as you install trusted software. The problem with this notification is it only occurs upon first access and then, it only reacts to external connections coming into your computer. Connections originating from your PC are generally allowed and ignored.
ConnectionWatcher fills in those missing details. Each entry includes the communication protocal, address, port, process name and ID, as well as the amount of traffic transmitted. Suspicious items can then be handled directly through the interface. Results can also be exported to a log for historical comparisons.
While it’s clear that items such as Outlook or Firefox can be safely ignored as you are quite aware they are accessing the Internet – not all are so obvious. Make a habit of launching ConnectionWatcher every so often and if anything appears out of the ordinary you can often get to the bottom of it by looking up the process name in Google or Bing. Remember – knowledge is power in all walks of life!