Is UltraVNC safe to use?

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Is UltraVNC safe to use?

The reason I am asking is because I had something happen that made me wonder. I have ultravnc installed as a service on my home pc. I left my computer on one night downloading a big file and in the morning I woke up and it was acting funny. Firefox would not start, just crashed; my email would retrieve but the bodies were not displaying.

I was smart enough to check the event viewer and noticed there had been a large number of invalid connection attempts to ultravnc that night. Nothing else seemed out of the ordinary in there. I have since stopped using the installation on that partition (xp) and am now reconsidering opening that port on my router ever again even at a different port number.

What do you think? Should I be worried?
Thanks,
Ink.

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Fairly Loaded question here -
In contrast
Is a loaded Gun safe? - Yes in the right hands with proper knowledge of the dangers and risks of the loaded gun.

So your answer is - Yes its safe if you use items that help you mitigate attacks from the internet.

First things first - using UltraVNC on your home computer is fairly common. However - using the Security DSM plugin helps keep out those pesky port scanning people. Using a "non traditional" port number (e.g. 443 or say 1024) rather than the default 5800 or 5900 ports with the computer. This is true with any services you host on the internet that you can mask. Should you have File transfer enabled? No, when you connect then turn it on. If you dont use the DSM plugin there have been reports of issues on a local lan but not sure of WAN.

Last but not least. - Dont run the service unless you require or need it. If you are at home, kill the service? If you are about to go to school then turn it on.

My opinion - UltraVNC is safe when configured properly and used over the internet. Use non traditional ports for connection - Use the DSM Plugin, possibly set up SSH through open ssh on the computer you wish to connect to and use a secure shell to communicate with the DSM. Run the program when you are not there, at the home. Easy as right clicking and closing it. This also helps reduce your risk.

and BTW the newer and I thought all VNC's have a connection refusal attempt mark. If you try to connect 4 times unsuccessfully it will ban the ip for a period of time.. 30 mins I think?

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try UltraVNC RC19.5 with DSMPlugin 1.1.5 for secure data transmission. over LAN, WLAN, WAN and/or Internet
http://home.comcast.net/~msrc4plugin/index.html