How secure am I?

[finity24]

I know next to nothing about internet security, firewalls, and trojans. Please don't say I have nothing to worry about, because I'm not worried at all. I've opened ports for certain games and programs, but how vulnerable does that leave me? Like if I open ports to allow ventrillo, and tomorrow I open ports for skype, but I never close any of them....does that leave me open to people snooping on my business? Like a neighbor that cracked my router? Or someone in the vent channel who traces my IP. How much data could someone exploiting these open ports access? What can I do to shield myself? I have a good antivirus and router, but I still don't feel... secure sometimes.

Please ease my troubled mind :/

 

[finity24]

could someone please enlighten me a little on anything ive asked?

 

[hang-the-9]

I know next to nothing about internet security, firewalls, and trojans. Please don't say I have nothing to worry about, because I'm not worried at all. I've opened ports for certain games and programs, but how vulnerable does that leave me? Like if I open ports to allow ventrillo, and tomorrow I open ports for skype, but I never close any of them....does that leave me open to people snooping on my business? Like a neighbor that cracked my router? Or someone in the vent channel who traces my IP. How much data could someone exploiting these open ports access? What can I do to shield myself? I have a good antivirus and router, but I still don't feel... secure sometimes.

Please ease my troubled mind :/

Anytime you open ports you open yourself to scans on those ports. You should not have to open any ports for those applications. I use both game chat programs and skype with all settings on default. Make sure your router firmware is updated. Make sure you actually need to open any ports you opened. As I said, I can run Skype and anything else I wanted to us with the default router setup.