Thanks Al. You were right. It was a malware that was blocking it.

Cyrus

>>I have an ActiveX that uses "outbound port 22 (ssh)" to talk to a gateway for credit card services.
>>It's been working for couple of years with no problems. All of a sudden the port got blocked.
>>
>>After I uninstalled all the Anti-Virus, Anti-Spyware, and firewalls on this windows XP machine, and then stopped Windows own Firewall, I could not get the port opened up (unblocked) again.
>>
>>Finally, I restored Windows from a Restore point from couple of days before the blockage. That worked well for couple of days.
>>Then it got blocked again. This time, the System Restore doesn't even work!!
>>
>>Maybe some program on that machine got an automatic update and closed the port?
>>Or could it be the ISP blocking the port ? I can only speculate.
>>
>>Any idea on how I can go about this, would be very much appreciated. Thank you in advance,.
>
>Well, you've disabled the usual suspects, AV and firewall(s).
>
>Is there anything in your router configuration, or your ISP's policies, that could be blocking SSH? The fact that you did a System Restore, and it worked for a while, suggests not, but you never know...
>
>Some firewalls block or allow network traffic by application, rather than a specific port. If you're currently running a firewall you might need to check that your application is allowed.
>
>Maybe you could ask the OCX vendor exactly what that error means.
>
>Finally, it might be worth running a thorough antivirus/antimalware scan to make sure your machine is not infected. Most modern malware hooks the network stack and can cause unpredictable networking failures. Also, SSH is considered high-value, so any installed malware will likely attempt to log user name/password credentials used with that connection. If you do find a malware infestation, be sure to change your SSH password or any other credentials that may have been logged and transmitted to a bad guy.