Hi,
I use a Mac running OSX 10.4.11 and Firefox V3.6.3 as my primary browser. Have also been using Norton Antivirus and Firewall for about 3 months now. As I get more familiar with the security features, I started to be more aggressive in monitoring and blocking incoming and outgoing activity if I feel any "unusualness."
About a week ago I saw some numerous activity of outgoing access to the internet from my bin/cat and bin/ps and didn't recognize it as a normal application I used or have seen before in terms of activity. It seemed to be actively trying to connect to the internet when I wasn't doing anything at all, or sometimes when I am browsing the internet.. Anyway I blocked it so now it does not have access to the internet.
Some days there is no attempt for bin/cat or bin/ps to access the internet and somedays it tries to access the internet about 30- 40 times per hour, for hours at a time, all of which are currently blocked.
What is bin/cat and bin/ps and who uses it? Should I be concerned? Should I unblock? There is no IP address or company website or name associated with the to/from of its connections.
FYI, I started using my localhost with MAMP/phpMyAdmin for web development and testing about a month ago also. Any relationship? Thanks for any insights.