igor0
4
The Internet Mail provider (ashmaisv.exe) works as a proxy for common e-mail clients (unlike the Outlook/Exchange provider, which works as an Outlook plugin - the full MS Outlook (not Express) offers such possibility).
So, avast listens on the usual POP/SMTP/IMAP ports; the e-mail client is redirected to the local computer - i.e. it connects to avast; avast then connects to the real server and passes the requests on. So, avast “sits” between the e-mail client and the server. To do it, it has to listen on the ports that the e-mail program is connecting to.
However, on these ports, avast accepts connection from the local computer only - it would never accept a connection from another computer, so it shouldn’t cause any security problems.