I want to setup port forwarding for a Minecraft server I have so that others can access it ,but I’m not sure how safe it is. Can anyone shed some light on this?
In: Technology
The safest server is a server that is inaccessible, however that isn’t a very useful server.
If you’re self-hosting a Minecraft server, forwarding ports is a necessary action to allow other people to connect to your server. You wouldn’t be able to self-host otherwise. The danger in open ports comes from people sending illegitimate data to the port to exploit whatever program is listening on the other side of it.
If someone were to exploit the port you had open for your Minecraft server, their attack would be limited to targeting the flaws in how Minecraft receives and processes network traffic.
So could an attacker send you viruses and take control of your computer because you have a port open that Minecraft is listening on? Most likely not. If they had some knowledge of a bug that exists in Minecraft, they could possibly exploit it, but even then the amount of damage they could do would be limited.
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