Port 60823 — Unassigned Ephemeral Port

What Is Port 60823?

Port 60823 belongs to the dynamic/ephemeral port range (49152–65535), the band of port numbers explicitly reserved for temporary, short-lived connections. ¹ No official service is registered here. IANA doesn't assign these ports—instead, your operating system automatically allocates them when applications need a client-side port for communication.

The Range and Why It Matters

The dynamic port range exists because the Internet's architects understood a basic fact: not every port number can be reserved in advance. Some numbers have to be left open for operating systems to hand out on-the-fly to applications that need them temporarily.

Your operating system manages this range:

• Windows (since Vista): Uses 49152–65535 by default ²
• macOS/Linux: Similar or overlapping ranges, depending on configuration
• Allocation: Automatic, temporary, released when the connection closes ¹

Port 60823 could be claimed by any application at any moment. Most of the time, nothing is listening there. Sometimes, it's your web browser. Sometimes, it's something else.

Known Unofficial Uses

Security researchers have documented Trojan.DownLoader34.3753, a malware variant, associating port 60823 with malicious activity. ³ This trojan performs code injection, creates hidden services, and modifies system files.

This doesn't mean port 60823 is "bad." It means someone, somewhere, found this port useful for their malware. Trojans are opportunistic—they use whatever port happens to be available or hard to notice. The number itself is innocent. What matters is what's listening.

How to Check What's Using This Port

If you suspect activity on port 60823:

On macOS/Linux:

lsof -i :60823

On Windows (PowerShell):

netstat -ano | findstr :60823

Cross-platform (if netstat is available):

netstat -an | grep 60823

These commands tell you: Is anything listening? If so, which process owns it?

Why Unassigned Ports Matter

The unassigned range is the Internet's commons—it's where temporary, client-side connections live. Applications don't advertise here. Services don't register here. It's a zone of transience, exactly as designed.

This makes the dynamic range both useful and invisible. It's also why security researchers monitor it. Malware, like everything else, needs a port. When it picks one from this range, it blends in with thousands of legitimate ephemeral connections.

The presence of a port number in a malware database doesn't mean that port is inherently compromised. It means someone used it once, and the fact was recorded.