Putting up a FW seems to be the logical way to help combat this. I use Proport.exe (tdupage.com) and it would tell me a host of "listening" sites and a couple of ports that were established.
i messed up my comp to the point of formatting the C: drive and have since reinstalled everything and using the FW (I use ZA free) and not seen any more "listening" ports though i get scanned a lot.