Opened TCP port 445 can be a target for hackers as well as for worms such as Sasser and Kargo which will waste a lot of resources on your PC so that programs cannot run properly.
To get the list of all the opened TCP ports on your PC, goto command prompt window (cmd.exe)and type the command netstat -an and press enter. Then you can notice that TCP port 445 in the opened state is available for use which can be exploited by a malicious hacker. So, as a windows network security measure it is recommended to disable TCP port 445 in Windows. This can be done by a simple system registry tweak.
Follow the steps below to disable TCP port 445:
1. Click Start, Click Run… type regedit or regedt32 and click OK. This will get you to the Registry Editor Window.
Regedit run command
2. From the left pane of the registry editor, navigate to the following Key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE > System > CurrentControlSet > Services > NetBT > Parameters
Registry Editor – ‘Parameter’ Registry Key
3. Now, from the right-hand side of the Registry Editor window, find a String Value named TransportBindName and double click on it (or) right-click with your mouse and select modify.
4. Delete the default Value Data and assign it a blank value and press OK.
TransportBindName string value data
5. Close the Registry Editor and restart your PC for the changes to take effect.
After Restarting when you submit the “netstat -an” command in the Windows command interpreter window (cmd.exe), you’ll find that your computer no longer listens the Port 445.
