Computer Tries to Access Default Gateway

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I have been getting a pop-up from Zone Alarm saying it has blocked Internet access to my default gateway from my computer. This is a new warning and happens as soon as I boot. I told ZA that address was in the Trusted Zone and then I have internet access. This confuses the heck out of me – why on earth is my computer trying to access the default gateway? Is this normal or does it sound like my pc has been infected and is trying to dial out? My ISP is Earthlink set up for DHCP.

TIA

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I don’t know why this is a new happening for you as I think it’s expected behaviour, Sherry. There are other Loungers who can explain this in more technical terms than I but it’s normal for your “network” structure to initialize itself on bootup, whether it be to other machine on a LAN or the gateway. It’s also possible that, like many of us, you have software installed that tries to check the ‘Net for updates, as in my case my PC-cillin AV program and others. Verification that your machine IS “seeing” the gateway is necessary for any communication to occur. To be on the safe side, it wouldn’t hurt to run a couple of spyware-checkers like Spybot and AdAware, etc. just to make sure you haven’t picked up something along the way.

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So I take it then that it’s OK for the default gateway to be in the trusted zone? And that IF you picked up a virus or a trojan that tried to “call home” your only protection would be in how vigilant you were in running Spybot, AdAware etc.

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