What Port 359 Is
Port 359 is a well-known port (falling in the 0-1023 range) that currently holds "Reserved" status with IANA. This is unusual. Most ports in the well-known range have clear assignments. Port 359 had one too—until November 16, 2023, when IANA de-assigned it.1
The official registry no longer tells us what service ran here. That history has been erased from the record.
What De-Assignment Means
When IANA de-assigns a port, it means the service that once used it no longer needs it, or the assignment was found to be inactive. The port moves to "Reserved" status rather than becoming immediately available for reassignment. According to IANA procedures, reserved ports should not be reassigned until all unassigned ports in the range are exhausted, and there's reasonable certainty the port is truly no longer in use.2
Port 359 is in this limbo state. It had a past. That past is gone from the official record. But the Internet has a longer memory than registries do.
The Shadow History
Security databases flag port 359 as having been associated with malware and Trojans.3 This doesn't mean a virus currently uses the port, but that malicious software has used it in the past to communicate. The official service that once ran here is forgotten, but this darker use case persists in security scanner databases.
When you run a port scan, port 359 might show up flagged—not because of what it was officially assigned to do, but because of what it was used for unofficially.
Why Reserved Ports Matter
Reserved ports are the Internet's equivalent of a cemetery plot. The name on the headstone has been removed, but the space still exists. These ports serve as historical markers—evidence that the Internet's addressing system is not static, that services come and go, that some ports outlive their original purpose.
Port 359 sits in the well-known range, which means it was once important enough to warrant a system-level assignment. Whatever ran here mattered. And now it doesn't, or it moved elsewhere, or it died entirely.
Checking Port 359
To see if anything is listening on port 359 on your system:
On Linux or macOS:
On Windows:
If something is listening on port 359, it's not an officially assigned service. It's either legacy software that hasn't updated since before November 2023, or it's something unofficial—possibly malicious.
The Honest Truth
Port 359 is empty space with a past. IANA won't tell you what it used to be. The registry shows only the de-assignment date. But security databases remember the malware. And somewhere, on some forgotten server, there might still be software listening on port 359, waiting for connections that will never come, running a protocol whose name has been struck from the record.
The Internet is full of these ghosts—ports that once meant something, now reserved, their purpose lost to time.
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