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Why are my open ports considered a vulnerability?

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Why are my open ports considered a vulnerability?

HostedScan reports every open port as a risk until you accept it, because an open port can expose a database or admin panel to the internet.

Last updated on 19 Oct, 2026

Unexpected open ports can be a significant threat to your cybersecurity. For example: a database or administrator panel that is accidentally exposed to the public internet.

However, there are many situations where ports are intentional open to the public internet. In fact it is a necessary part of doing business online!

In this case, please create an acceptance rule after logging in at https://hostedscan.com/risks. By default, our software treats all open ports as risks until they are explicitly marked as accepted. For things like webservers, it is quite standard for ports 80 and 443 to be open, so these risks just need to be accepted.

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