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Why does svchost access the internet?

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Summary: If automatic time update is turned on, then it may simply be svchost periodically attempting to access the internet.

Why does svchost access the internet?

This manifests a couple of ways: your firewall warns you that svchost.exe is attempting to the internet, or it attempts to dial your internet provider.

It's probably simple.

You probably have automatic time updates turned on. That runs as a svchost hosted process (What is SVCHOST?), and periodically attempts to connect to an internet service to set you clock for you. You can turn that off by right clicking the clock in your task bar, selecting Adjust Date/Time, and clicking on the Internet Time tab.

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Article C2176 - September 1, 2004

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Recent Comments
25 Comments

i mean i can't log in...

Posted by: Ferry at July 4, 2009 3:36 AM

When I view my firewall I see svchost.exe using the internet even when all my applications are closed. I have turned off automatic updates. Is this because of a virus or something? Any idea please help.. Thanks

Posted by: Naheed at July 9, 2009 10:41 AM

Its because svchost.exe is a windows process and when we visits many websites in a small span of time
the cached data & temp internet files saved in our PC request svchost.exe to avail them out bound internet connection.
simplest way to get rid of such happening is that always remove temp files & clear cache items.
check your antivirus firewall their you can stop all out bound TCP connection which will make your internet connection stable until you access it.
Enjoy surfing

Temp files have nothing to do with svchost.exe accessing the internet.
Leo
03-Oct-2009

Posted by: Rehan at October 2, 2009 1:23 PM

People please do not allow svchost.exe to allow access to internet I WARNED YOU.

What you are seeing is a rootkit masked as a svchost to access to the internet. Trust me if you check task manager there will be tones of svchost .exe there but there is one hidden svchost .exe that is running hidden which is why firewalls are reporting the service trying to access the internet .

Most of the time it will contact some Russian servers and relentlessly retries to connect them if you engage internet lock.

la2atom.ru 81.177.157.74
battlecore.ru

Posted by: HumanCHeck at October 17, 2009 8:19 AM

You are full of BS, MS is NOT spying on you. Why would they even care about you anyway? Windows also tries to update root certificates as well. You can disable that by removing update root certificates from the Add/Remove Windows components. If your computer was part of a domain at work, and you brought it home, it will try to find the domain periodically as well.
Please stop spewing garbage.

Posted by: SmarterThanYou at December 22, 2009 8:07 AM

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