How to Know which Programs are using your ports?

If ShieldsUP detects that one (or more) of your ports is open, you can identify which program or service is responsible through the Windows Command Prompt.

Go to Start, type cmd then right-click that entry and choose ‘Run as administrator’ (in Windows 8, type command prompt into the Start screen, and in XP go to Start, Run and type runas /user:administrator cmd.exe then enter the administrator password).

In the Command Prompt window, type netstat -bno and look for entries in the Foreign Address column with the open port’s number at the end of their address.



 

For example, the address 212.98.89.186:80 is using port 80. The name of the program or service using the port should be given underneath; if you are not sure what it is, go to search Process Library and find the meaning.

Now, Remove or block the security threat, and run ShieldsUP again.