Using BitTorrant to Hack??

[pmonk]

Is this possible???

[Five]

It is my understanding that there would have to be something in the code of your client for an attack to be made this way. One in a Billion chance, and in the unlikely event you would probably see a thread about it very quickly.

[pmonk]

I would imagine that! So it would be far-fetched that someone can use my BT client to be able to enter my office network and delete files!

[Five]

I'm no programmer but I've seen this topic come up several times and the techsperts unanimously agree that bt is safe.

hopefully somebody will stop by and post a more detailed explanation than I'm capable of!

[RainDawg]

I'm not really qualified to comment, but I'll say that I have heard from people who's opinions I respect that opening ports and using BT software is quite safe.

Perfectly safe you say? BitTorrent seems to have hacked my computer pretty bad. I started running it 18 months ago and in that time it has managed to flood my harddrive with SHN and FLAC files.

[Rider]

Nothing is 100% safe but like Five said, there would have to be something in the client. And considering how vocal the BT world is I think the second an exploit came out in one of the BT clients everyone would know about it.

It would also be a good idea to stick with the more well used clients.

[pmonk]

Just BT clients officially endorsed by STG, R-O and TTD

[Rider]

Originally Posted by pmonk66

Just BT clients officially endorsed by STG, R-O and TTD

Also becarefull where you get the cleints from. There was a site that was hosting a version of Shadows that was full of spyware

[irishcrazy2005]

I have a question about this. By opening up ports 6881-6999 in your firewall, aren't you becoming more vulnerable to attack? I understand that all internet activity occurs through open ports, but I am a little confused here.

-Phil

[chipwhite935]

Originally Posted by irishcrazy2005

I have a question about this. By opening up ports 6881-6999 in your firewall, aren't you becoming more vulnerable to attack? I understand that all internet activity occurs through open ports, but I am a little confused here.

-Phil

Only if you have a program on your machine that is listening on those ports and it is either malicious or has some nasty vulnerabilities. Just having ports open by itself should not be a problem.

[irishcrazy2005]

Originally Posted by chipwhite935

Only if you have a program on your machine that is listening on those ports and it is either malicious or has some nasty vulnerabilities. Just having ports open by itself should not be a problem.

Pardon my stupidity, but why then have a firewall in the first place?

-Phil

You're right, irish. It's not simply a matter of whether a program is listening to a particular port that determines vulnerability. Opening ports does make you more vulnerable to attacks regardless of whether a particular program is using that port. But the only way to assure absolute security from attack via the net is to not be connected to the net.

[TedBell]

gotta be careful that you are downloading your clients from official channels...there are some hacked versions of bittorrent clients out there which contain evilware...first client i ever downloaded contained a nasty keystroke logger.

[chipwhite935]

Originally Posted by irishcrazy2005

Pardon my stupidity, but why then have a firewall in the first place?

-Phil

That's not a stupid question.

I didn't mean to imply that you can just open up all of your ports and not worry about being hacked. The question was about the standard Bittorrent ports 6881-6999. But there are many "Well Known" system ports that should be protected by a firewall. In this case, the operating system and its related utilities are listening on these ports.

Also, a firewall can help detect and prevent outbound data traffic that might be generated by spyware running on your machine.