Tracing email IP

[Echohh]

Hi, I have an issue that I need some advice on. My brother has a vindictive girlfriend who has a hacker friend, and while he has been staying at my place he has been emailing her from one of my computers using an email account from his own website (which I set up for him). My concern is that she and her hacker friend will get a hold of my IP and hack into my computer. Is it possible for her to get my IP by tracing the email address?

Any advice would be much appreciated, thanks!

 

[burtsbees]

Not with a public email server, like Yahoo or Gmail. If the hacker dude is staying with you, though, then he could easily hack into your system.

Burt

 

[Echohh]

No, thankfully the hacker friend is not staying with me. Sorry if my OP was unclear, I meant my brother has been staying with me. Anyway, I just tried emailing myself from a Yahoo address to another Yahoo address and my IP appeared in the headers information. Same thing happened when I emailed myself from my brother's website email address. So now I know for sure it is possible for her to get my IP. Is it easy for her hacker friend to get into my system with the IP address? I'm only using Windows firewall. My wireless router also has a factory installed firewall.

 

[burtsbees]

Your IP address appeared in the IP header of the email, as in you saw it in the output of a packet sniffer?

Burt

 

[Echohh]

No, I just clicked "Full headers" while viewing the email on Yahoo. No extra software. Here's a link to the website that showed me how to view the full headers on Yahoo and MSN:

http://www.johnru.com/active-whois/headers-yahoo-hotmail.html#yahoo

 

[burtsbees]

Well, you are emailing to and from the same pc---are you sure the IP address you see is not because of this???

Burt

 

[burtsbees]

Nevermind...WOW! I never knew that! Anyway, any hack is easily thwarted with a decent router (like Cisco) that you can configure acl's, cbac, tcp intercept, etc. in them. The PIX is even better, but the router I have at home (Cisco 2620XM with WIC-1ADSL) is loaded with the best IOS, and it works better than a PIX, but it would be worth $1200 plus on Ebay. You can get a decent Cisco 837 for around $150 on Ebay with a good IOS that will definitely do what you want it to do---it is for adsl. In fact, I also have one I want to get rid of.

Burt

 

[burtsbees]

No---nevermind---the IP address that you see is from the email server at Yahoo, or wherever they sent it from, NOT the IP address of the actual sender. Someone should tell those people at johnru.com

Burt

 

[dtrtel]

If your ISP router with firewall is working correctly
and you haven't opened up and ports for incoming connections
you are safe by the default NAT configuration. All incoming
connections without the ESTABLISHED bit are blocked.

But, most wireless routers are also configured with no
security on the wireless side out of the box. If this
describes your setup, you could get hacked if the hacker
dude comes close to you and associates with your wireless
AP.


--jeff

http://linkedin.com/in/JeffLynch