What This Port Is
Port 2810 is registered with IANA under the name netsteward, assigned to a product called Active Net Steward — a distributed firewall system described in a 2001 SANS Institute whitepaper. Both TCP and UDP are registered. The assignee on record is Keith Morley.1
Whether Active Net Steward is still in active development or deployment anywhere is unclear. Its web presence has largely evaporated. The port sits in the registered range with a name on the deed, but the tenant moved out long ago.
The Registered Port Range
Port 2810 sits in the registered ports range (1024–49151). These ports are assigned by IANA on request, typically to identify specific applications or services. Unlike the well-known ports (0–1023), registered ports don't require elevated privileges to bind on most operating systems, and their assignments are sometimes loosely enforced in practice.
When a product that holds a registered port disappears, the assignment doesn't automatically expire. The port stays claimed in IANA's registry, sometimes for decades.
What Actually Used Port 2810
HP Intelligent Management Center (IMC) — a network management platform — ran a process called dbman.exe on TCP port 2810. This process ran with SYSTEM-level privileges and had no authentication requirement for incoming connections.
In 2011, a stack-based buffer overflow vulnerability was discovered in this component (CVE-2011-1850). An unauthenticated remote attacker could send a specially crafted packet to port 2810 and execute arbitrary code with full SYSTEM privileges, or crash the service.2
This is a common pattern in the registered port range: one product claims a port, disappears, and another product quietly starts using the same number for something unrelated — sometimes with consequences.
How to Check What's Listening on This Port
If you see traffic on port 2810 or want to know whether anything on your system is bound to it:
On Linux/macOS:
On Windows:
Then match the process ID (PID) to a running process to identify what's actually listening.
If you find something listening on this port that you didn't intentionally install, treat it as worth investigating.
Why This Matters
Unassigned or forgotten registered ports are a small window into how the Internet's address book actually works. IANA keeps the registry, but the registry can't force products to use only their assigned port, or stop using a port they never formally claimed. Port numbers are conventions, not guarantees.
The HP IMC story is a useful reminder: a port with an obscure, inactive registration is still a port that software might use. When that software runs with elevated privileges and has no authentication, a stack-based buffer overflow becomes a complete system compromise — delivered on a port most firewalls probably weren't watching.
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