[Goldfinger]

Hi

I was testing my Security at a site and they said my system replied to a ping ( ICMP Echo) and I should set my router to not allow this. My question is, what are the advantages and disadvantages if any, and not just for security reasons, for being pingable and not pingable? I'm using Windows XP if that matters.

Thank you.

[lotuseclat79]

Hi Goldfinger,

Closing off your ports and ping responses reduces exposure to port scans for your router from network scans by miscreants. If a ping responds to a network scan, the miscreants then know that there is a computer at the ip address, if not, they move on.

While you are at it, you might check to make sure you changed the default router admin password - which is a common attack vector by the miscreants. If you do not have the manual for your router, visit the manufacturer's web site and download it, e.g. Linksys manuals are usually PDF documents and about 1MG download or thereabouts.

When you have a connection by modem, if one modem doesn't answer after 4 successive echo-requests, depending on how the modem is configured, if 4 is the limit - it will then hang up - followed usually by an attempt to reconnect by the modem.

-- Tom

[lunarlander]

A ping is used to remotely establish if a networked machine is up or down. During setup, this is a useful thing, for example when setting up a new machine on the network, you can ping the router to see if your new machine can 'see' the router. But generally, after the setup phase, the echo request only serves hackers who want to know if there is a PC at an address, and begin attacking it, just like lotuseclat79 says. It is better to disable repsonse to echo request after you have setup your network.

[Goldfinger]

Thanks Lunarlander and lotuseclat79.

So besides for setting up theres no advantage for being pingable?