DMZ

[sampazzer]

Hi all.

I did something a bit silly. Basically I've ended up putting my laptop in the DMZ for around a minute or so. I'm a little worried about what may have happened in that time. 

Couple of questions. Does anyone know if it shows in the log when you add something to the DMZ like it does when you port forward something, I cant seem to find anything relating to it therefore it may never have actually saved and applied the setting properly.

What would be your advice following on from doing this? I know there's plenty of bots out there waiting for an opportune moment to take advantage of this sort of thing. Would a full format of the laptop be necessary?

I have factory re-set the Hub.

Also, once the DMZ option has been set to off does this mean that nothing is in the DMZ? - It wont have applied an option to my laptop that needs turning off in the hub somewhere else?

Any information will be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

[Les-Gibson]

Why do you think you put your laptop in the DMZ? it's not something that you're likely to do by accident. Even if you did, you're still protected by the hub's firewall, dodgy websites may represent an increased risk but if you haven't been on one then the chances are that no harm will have been done

[Crimliar · Accepted solution]

As an explainer...  Set up in a regular fashion the router will reject any info that it received that has not been requested by a client device.  When you put a device into the "DMZ" everything that hits the router, solicited by a device or not is forwarded to that specific device.  Unless the "DMZ" device is listening out for that info or is in some manner compromised, the unsolicited data will still be ignored, just at the device rather than the router.
So having had your laptop in the DMZ for a few minutes, the chances of it being compromised are incredibly small, and there really is no real reason to reset the router.
As for comments in the log - you are sending everything to that device, it really wouldn't make sense to put EVERYTHING in the log!  And as soon as you turn the DMZ off, the router will start filtering immediately.
*I genuinely would not worry, but I'd also not play with settings if you are unsure of what they do.

[sampazzer]

I set up a VPN which worked when I hotspot my laptop with my phone but wasn't working on my network WiFi. Turns out it's because of the networks being on the same subnet which I didn't understand at the time. 

Sometimes when I should take a step back from a problem I go at it until I either fix it or do something silly. The latter in this case. I have no idea why I did it even after reading the warning.

My laptop is running windows 11 and is regularly updated. 

Thank you for your advice and spending the time to reply.