Pinging Firewall

Did a test with Shield Up ( http://www.grc.com/x/ne.dll?rh1dkyd2 )to see how my ports are protected by my ESET Smart Securityv 4.0.474.0 and everything was OK. However there was this message:

"Ping Reply: RECEIVED (FAILED) — Your system REPLIED to our Ping (ICMP Echo) requests, making it visible on the Internet. Most personal firewalls can be configured to block, drop, and ignore such ping requests in order to better hide systems from hackers. This is highly recommended since "Ping" is among the oldest and most common methods used to locate systems prior to further exploitation."

Can I configure ESEt to block attempts to ping me ?

Tia

 

Couldn't it be that you are behind a router that responds to ping? ESET firewall doesn't send the RST packet by default, however, as of the firewall build 1053 you can define exceptions for IP addresses that will receive RST when ICMP communication is blocked.

 

No router.

 

I also did a test with Shield Up. I'm using ESET Smart Security v 4.0.467.0 and I got;
Ping Reply: RECEIVED (FAILED) — Your system REPLIED to our Ping (ICMP Echo) requests, making it visible on the Internet. Most personal firewalls can be configured to block, drop, and ignore such ping requests in order to better hide systems from hackers. This is highly recommended since "Ping" is among the oldest and most common methods used to locate systems prior to further exploitation.

I too do not use a router.

How can I fix this?

Thanks

 

Not replying to ping requests doesn't make you "invisible"!
Quite the contrary: Dropping ping packets is like holding up a big I'm here busyly trying to hide something-sign up in the air.

Not responding to a ping packet is a clear indication of a system present at this address. If there were no system, the router would respond with destination unreachable. Since the ping packet simply times out, there must be a system actively dropping the packet.

I wouldn't exactly call that "hidden" or "stealthed" - would you?

So, relax and be a good member of the Internet community: Don't try to hide (you can't anyway - at least not by "stealth") let your system respond to ping packets. As long as all other really rogue requests are denied, the firewall is working A-ok.

 

Thanks

 

From my point of view, a firewall is primarily a packet filter. As such it should give the options to control any/all ICMP(or any other packet) leaving or entering the system.

I have made posts before concerning the lack of filtering for ICMP.

- Stem