Airport Extreme Security Doubts

i went to grc.com and give my network/iMac a test, Sheild's Up. It came out that most of my ports are closed instead of Stealth. I used to be Stealth with my Belkin wireless router. and now upgrading to AExtreme, Does this wireless router makes me more vulnerable? How to make my iMac more secure from the internet.

Do you have any other computers connected to the network when doing this test? I had a PC on did the test and I fail for NetBios, then I shut the PC down, only keeping my MacBook Pro, iMac, and Fedora Core 6 machine on. Then I got a full stealth:

I don't see any AP options for stealth, and with multiple computers on a network they would all have to configured for stealth anyhow.

Min fails, but I know why. I'm also not really worried about it.

Agreed with Baggss. Mine does not fail but it not 100% stealth either. I know why and it's of no concern to me. I run a BBS system (Predecessor of Forums) and I have to keep port 23 open for Telnet, but just to the one Server from the router. I also run a Web Server on the same 2K Server system and need Port 80 open, but again it's only open to that one machine. Since that test looks for open ports, it sees the Router and does not know what is on the other side. That server by the way is very protected so there is no real danger. It's been up 24 a day for the last 5 years.

Otherwise I would be stealth on the GRC test. I know that test and it's author quite well.

baggss said:

I don't see any AP options for stealth, and with multiple computers on a network they would all have to configured for stealth anyhow.

Min fails, but I know why. I'm also not really worried about it.

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I suppose they're saying your stealthy if they can't ping on a known open ports on the FE. Especially since this is just a port scan of commonly open ports - hevan knows it's no nmap, ISS, or Nessus. Don't think I'm fooled, by no means is anyone stealthy on the net, which I suppose it the irony of check for PASS on stealth.

jaynorris said:

I suppose they're saying your stealthy if they can't ping on a known open ports on the FE. Especially since this is just a port scan of commonly open ports - hevan knows it's no nmap, ISS, or Nessus. Don't think I'm fooled, by no means is anyone stealthy on the net, which I suppose it the irony of check for PASS on stealth.

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Agreed.

Now if I went ad set Stealth on the other 4 Macs in my house and did whatever one has to do tot he 1 PC, I suspect it would tell me I passed.

I ran this with just the iMac connected to the AExtreme. no windows machine connected to the network at all if else, just a powerbook.