Disabling Ping Response or even stealth it

SIW2 said:

It would be impossible if your earlier assertion was correct.

Ergo....

I recall a while back - several members of the team here did the grc test - failed - adjusted only windows firewall inbound rules - passed.

If you are behind a correctly configured router firewall with all ports closed, it is impossible for the ping to reach your machine. It only pings the router.

If you want to disable the ping service altogether, you have to disable it on the router.

It makes no difference at all how you configure your machine, or what software you use. It is impossible to affect the router ping service.

Regards....Mike Connor

SIW2 said:

It may be that some routers will respond - so adjusting windows firewall won't help there - I don't know - I haven't got one of those routers.

Neither, clearly have the other team members.

All routers will respond to a ping, unless the service is disabled on the router.

If you are able to affect this in any way by changing something on your machine, then you are not behind a firewalled router, or it is not correctly configured.

Regards....Mike Connor

SIW2 said:

Not correctly configured for what exactly?

Not configured to respond to ping requests by itself, I assume. Why would it be? There is no setting for that.

This router is used by millions of people - as supplied by my isp.

If a ping gets through the firewall, ( assuming your router has a firewall), then it is not correctly configured.

To disable the ping service on a Cisco router for instance you need to change or add the ACL ( Access Control List) entry to this;

access-list 107 deny icmp any any echo log

Anybody trying to ping that device will not get anything at all, not even an administrative denial. The device is just a black hole.

You can also set up for administrative denial, and that will result in the pinging device knowing that you are there, but that the request is denied.

If you connect directly to the internet with various devices, modem type devices, or non-firewalled routers, then anybody on the net has direct access to any of your open machine ports unless you configure your machine firewall to prevent it. ( That is what you described above).

If you can affect the ping service by changing something on your machine then you are not behind a firewalled router.

If you try to ping my machine for instance, all that will happen is that you get a ping response from my router. You can not get through my router to any of my ports, regardless of how they are configured.

The IP Address of my router is
79.246.42.103

That is all you will ever see. There is no way to see the actual IP address of my machine, or to access any of my ports, unless I expressly configure the router to allow it. Or allow the use of a tunneling protocol with express permission. ( As in Team Viewer and such).

For more information;

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/...800a5b9a.shtml

Regards....Mike Connor

The firewall on your machine can be set up to block all sorts of things, that is what it is for, but it only actually works if those requests reach your machine.

If you are behind a correctly configured firewalled router then such a request can never reach your machine.

Any router will respond to a ping request, and many other requests, which have been expressly enabled, or not, if they have been disabled.

I don't have any extra functions, I have a standard and fairly old router on my personal internet connection, with a built in firewall. I use several machines on it.

I have never asserted that there is anything wrong with anything at all. I merely pointed out some functions.

Quote "In any case - it does not, never has, and as far as I can see - never will respond to requests itself.".

That statement is simply incorrect. If a router could not respond to requests it would not function.

You seem to be getting rather agitated about this for some reason. I am merely pointing out some functions of firewalled and non firewalled routers.


Regards....Mike Connor

Just for info, all these routers have built in firewalls;

router with firewall - Google Search

If you want to forward ports on your machine to your router so that they are visible for various things, then you need to do something like this;

Port Forwarding Guides Listed by Manufacturer and Model - PortForward.com

Regards....Mike Connor