Firewall Alert

[crtvmac]

I have Virusbarrier X6 firewall installed on my computer. I got a warning that the 'Stroke application' wanted a connection to my computer. I did not know what it was, and let my firewall block that application. When I Google Stroke application, I kept getting queries that talked about keystroke logger as oppose to 'Stroke application'. Will someone please tell me what this 'Stroke Application' is about?

 

[angelwatt]

See this page and search for the word stroke. I'm not 100% this is what is asking permission through the firewall, but it is potential and was the most likely thing I found (searched: mac "stroke application").

stroke and netstat

In the Network Utility.app, Apple includes a port scan tool. Port scanning can be very helpful in determining what vulnerabilities exist on your system (or systems, if you manage client and server machines). It can also help you check whether a computer on your network is available for remote connections like ssh or sftp, which we looked at in Part Two of this series. The command line equivalent of the GUI port scan utility is called stroke and it's hidden inside the package contents of the Network Utility.app.

While the page talks about Tiger, the stroke application still exists in Snow Leopard. Even if this is the app that is doing the requesting, it's not clear what may be utilizing the stroke app.

 

[crtvmac]

See this page and search for the word stroke. I'm not 100% this is what is asking permission through the firewall, but it is potential and was the most likely thing I found (searched: mac "stroke application").



While the page talks about Tiger, the stroke application still exists in Snow Leopard. Even if this is the app that is doing the requesting, it's not clear what may be utilizing the stroke app.

That was exactly when my firewall gave me an alert. I was using the Network Utility to do a multi range port scan on a website I have had access to, but could not connect to this same website last night. Thanks for the information.