[NTLUG:Discuss] Lock up - from port scanning?

[Kelly Scroggins]

In the past few days I've found my gateway locked up.  I have a cable
Internet connection through AT&T.

The gateway runs in command line mode only and does not respond to any
key I press.  Even if I try another virtual terminal (Alt+Fx).  I can
only see the blank screen (saver).  In addition, the connection with the
Internet is disconnected.  The only thing I can do is hard boot it. 
When it comes back up everything seems to work fine.

A possible relationship could be this entry I've noticed in my logs:

Feb  1 23:25:26 c55493-a kernel: IP fw-in deny eth0 TCP
24.0.94.130:40069 w.x.y.z:80 L=40 S=0x00 I=7798 F=0x0000 T=245

I did an nslookup on the ip address above and it returned this:

Server:  proxy1.grlnd1.tx.home.com
Address:  24.4.48.33

Name:    ops-scan.home.net
Address:  24.0.94.130

I've contacted AT&T @home but not received a reply yet.

Could it be that if someone was scanning my ports, my machine could lock
up?  Or is this totally unrelated.  Should I look for other possible
causes?  Do you have any suggestions?

Thanks,
kelly