I scanned my machine with Super Scan, and found 16 open ports. A person can only gain access to my machine through an open port?

It depends through which ports...

Ok, so what are you asking? That sounds like a rhetorical question. Yes someone can only get in through an open port, but just because it's open doesn't mean they can get in.

Infinite

I guess I was answering my own question. So...

I have a program called Attacker 3.0 (TCP ports listener) running. When it is not running I have 9 open ports, when it is running I have 16 open ports. I realize that this program is opening some ports 7 to be exact, but why is it opening them?

Just out of curiousity, why are you running programs that you don't know what they do or what they're supposed to do? :p

But besides that, I found this brief description of what I'm gonna assume is what you're talking about:

So from the sounds of things, this is a program that is made to listen on any given ports and wait for something to try to connect to it so you can audit what is trying to connect to your machine. Now as for why it's opening these extra ports... I'm gonna have to guess that it's doing that because that is the way YOU have it configured

I'm going to suggest a RTFM here; it's really the best course of action I think.

Infinite

I understand what the description says, but there is no place in the program that gives me the option to open certain ports, unless I am completely misreading the program which is quite possible. None the less, thank you for your help.

On the main screen, the box that says "Ports", like this:

doodily do, Just to clear this up..

Lets say I port scan myself and notice port 27374 (sub7's default port) is open.. "listening"

Now this is a good indicator that sub7 is running.. which would be bad... BUT it does not nescicarilly mean it is.

See the way it works is your computer has 65535 ports available at its dispense.

An application may 'bind' a port (lets the computer know which program to ask for the task) so when a Connection Request comes in it can eaither Say HELL NO GET THE [censored] AWAY (Refuse the Connection), just not respond, or 'Accept' the connection which makes standard TCP port scanner say the port is Open.

what else... ahh yes, IF I bind port 27374 to a program that will accept connection requests it does not mean people can hack me. The default port for HTTP is 80, that does not mean I cant run a web server on port 27374. It is the program that allows people to 'hack' you not the port


sorry if thats a bit confusing.. but you get the idea.

::sniff:: so proud ::wipes tear::

I would like to thank you all for the clarification.