Knowing about the incoming and outgoing connections of your computer or server gives you a big advantage in the fight against disproportionate traffic and malicious software. These connections are established via the respective network address, which indicates, among other things, which port was opened in advance for data exchange.
The big problem with these open ports is the fact that they offer third parties the opportunity to sneak malware into your system. Moreover, there is a possibility that a Trojan that is already in your system may install a so-called backdoor and open a corresponding port in the process. For this reason, you should regularly check the ports opened by your system. netstat is excellent for this.
Thanks to the detailed statistics, you can also get information about the packets transferred since the last system start and any errors that occurred. Also, the routing table, which gives information about the data packets’ journey through the network, can be displayed with the help of netstat.