UPDATE 10/4 6:47 EDT
I have been going through all the comments. THANKS!!! I did not know about the techniques listed, so they are extremely helpful. Sorry for the slow update. As I mentioned below, I got behind with this yesterday so work cut into my evening.
I ran a port scan. The first syntax, -p, brought no joy. The nmap software itself suggested changing to -Pn. That brought an interesting response:
nmap -Pn 1-9999 <Local IP Addr>
Starting Nmap 7.93 ( https://nmap.org ) at 2024-10-04 11:44 BST
Failed to resolve “1-9999”. Nmap scan report for <Local IP Address> Host is up (0.070s latency). All 1000 scanned ports on 192.168.0.46 are in ignored states. Not shown: 990 filtered tcp ports (no-response), 10 filtered tcp ports (host-unreach) Nmap done: 1 IP address (1 host up) scanned in 6.03 seconds Just to be absolutely sure, I turned off my work computer (the only windows box on my network) and reran the same syntax with the same results.
As I read this, there is definitely something on my network running windows that is not showing up on the DHCP.
UPDATE 10/6
I am working through all these suggestions. I am sorry for the slow responses, but I have my hands full with family weekend. I will post more next tomorrow. But I did do one thing that has me scratching my head and wondering if this may be a wild goose chase.
I ran the nmap again per below with a completely fictional IP address within my normal range. It gave the exact same results:
nmap -A -T4 -p- -Pn <Fictional IP>
Starting Nmap 7.93 ( https://nmap.org ) at 2024-10-05 13:36 BST Nmap scan report for <Fictional IP>
Host is up (0.054s latency).
All 65535 scanned ports on <Fictional IP> are in ignored states.
Not shown: 65525 filtered tcp ports (no-response), 10 filtered tcp ports (host-unreach)
Service detection performed. Please report any incorrect results at https://nmap.org/submit/ .
Nmap done: 1 IP address (1 host up) scanned in 182.18 seconds
As everyone else has said this is the out of the box default page that comes with Microsoft IIS web server on windows server.
Though I feel like you’d know if you had a copy of windows server running on your network somewhere—is the IP in your usual network subnet?
You can enable IIS on almost any windows flavor.
https://helpdeskgeek.com/windows-10/install-and-setup-a-website-in-iis-on-windows-10/
Fair point.
As a note, I don’t recall all of them saying ‘Windows Server’ in the top left of that page.
The only windows box on my network is my company laptop. It is on a different IP address than that one.
It IS in my normal range, but it is NOT listed on my Router’s DHCP client list.
Have you recently installed visual studio or are doing any .NET development? It could possibly be a containerised version of IIS
If you completely turn off your windows device and try to access the IP from another device does it still resolve?
Great Idea! My windows box is off and I can still see it from my phone.
Hmm
I’d maybe try systematically turning any other devices off you think could potentially have the grunt to run windows server in a container or VM.
Do you have a Mac/Linux machine handy? If you run
arp -ain one terminal and ping the unusual IP in another, that should give you a corresponding MAC address for the device. You can then look up the MAC address and see if it gives you any more info about the device running it—it might not but you never know. You can use something like https://dnschecker.org/mac-lookup.phpI guess next you could look at taking that MAC and blocking it in your router control panel and see if anything starts complaining
I guess next you could look at taking that MAC and blocking it in your router control panel and see if anything starts complaining
I love the “see who screams” method, my coworkers do not. it’s usually instant.
In addition, you might like to do a portscan on that IP address to see if any other ports reaveal something more interesting.
You can run this in cmd prompt, I think, if nmap is available on your windows machine:
nmap -p 1-9999 192.168.1.1IIS can only run on a windows OS, so it must be a windows physical machine or VM connected to your network.
Thanks as you can tell, I’m not an expert in any of this.
I will run this as you described.
I did the nmap based on input from ChatGPT, it had me do a Ping base scan with nmap. It turned up nothing because that IP address did not return a Ping.
This has me really curious.
I’m concerned that the website I opened in Safari on my phone is bringing up a cache on my browser and is not actually live.
I tried to open it from an iPad and it did not load. Iit still loads off my phone even though I have rebooted everything.
In case it helps your troubleshooting, ICMP (ping) is typically disabled by default on Windows.
That is weird. Running development environments maybe? Docker with windows iis?
I have x-code loaded on a Mac, but that is the closest I have to that.
Yeah, that’s a company server, specifically for the local network group
It IS in my normal range, but it is NOT listed on my Router’s DHCP client list.
Why would an internal server change IP all the time? DHCP is for silly things like laptops that turn on and off eleventy times a day
Even if it isn’t changing IP, you still want it in your DHCP table so that IP doesn’t accidentally get assigned to something else. It’s unlikely on a small network but it can happen.
Thanks! I did not know DHCP allocation was optional on a home network.
“home” isn’t descriptive enough. you can run some VERY powerful, in depth stuff if you were so inclined on a “home” network.
It is more than your average home network. I have a dual WAN router with fiber on each to a different provider. (It is stupid overkill, but my wife and I both work from home and it is important not to be down). I use a pi-hole for ad blocking and unbound for recursive DNS resolution. Most of the devices are wired Ethernet, so I have a bunch of switches and kit to transform coax into fast Ethernet.
I don’t mess with the firewalls, because that seems like there is a big downside to messing about if you get it wrong. That is all vanilla out of the box.
nice. firewalls are easy though, most you can keep vanilla. if you’ve setup a pihole, configuring a firewall is a breeze. most are all in ones also, so the router/gateway/firewall is all one box, just plug in your modem, then it’s a big switch basically with lots of options.
I run a ubiquiti usg pro 4, first gen and have a 24 port ubiquiti switch and access points. I love it. super advanced users will complain about some things, but ultimately it’s perfectly fine for me without having to get meraki $tuff. I run a few small game servers, a seedbox and some vms, nothing crazy. it moves about 1 TB / day of data from various torrents and nzbs, soulseek. have a micro Dell PC setup as my DNS and pihole, Plex server thousands of movies/shows.
Any device can decide to set it’s own IP so that’s not too far fetched. Have any IoT crap like a water softener or colorful lights or speakers or cameras?
I have quite a few smart home devices. But the only “crappy IoT things” is an air purifier that is controlled by phone.
Unfortunately, I bought quite a few T-Link products before the IC revealed that they are dangerous.
It is worth exploring.
Edit TP-Link
Ah I have a TP-link router as well, two actually, and Im not monitoring my home network at all. Your experience makes me think I should!
The default home page for Microsoft IIS, the web server built into Windows Server (and probably some desktop builds too).
Following, I want to know what god awful iot device this is. Refrigerator? Toaster oven? Vibrating dildo? The suspense is killing me
Nobody wants windows on a vibrating dildo
I mean, Windows already fucks us metaphorically
Bro, you gotta keep us updated, I’m surprisingly invested in this now.
I lost my entire morning to this yesterday. I had to work late to catch up. There are some good ideas in here I’m starting on now.
If you can, power stuff off and check if that web page is still available. Start with any Windows machines. It could be a virtual machine running inside of something else though.
Edit: here’s how to disable that web server https://superuser.com/a/1377078 . I’d do that on any Windows machines as well.
I shut off my only windows machine and it is still there.
I’d go around unplugging anything that might be connected to the network, like game consoles, smart TV, etc. It’s unlikely, but maybe something has copied that same screen to throw you off.
It is probably going to come to this.
does your router give you the MAC address of the device? You can look it up to see who manufactured it and then narrow down. This could be a device that has a web service running is all you are seeing right now.
It does not show up on the DHCP table, nor does it reflect pings.
You can always start looking at how to use WireShark to sniff the packets and learn more about what is coming and going from that system. WireShark can be a daunting tool but if you look at some videos or walk through you should be able to get a handle on how to make it reveal only the one devices network traffic
I have Wireshark, but haven’t really had a reason to learn it. I mostly just stare at the traffic rolling by the way they do on The Matrix. This is on the list to try.
How do you know it sent data? Any chance you have packet captures?
I had set my router to track IP Statistics. There were 9 packets sent and received to that IP.
This is where you find that shit is so bloated and pointlessly connected that it’s running on a washing machine.
Home network or corporate?
Its a windows server, if you are using widows too you can try establishing a RDP connection with Remote Desktop Connection.
It is a home network. Configured by someone who understands the basics, but is mostly following recipeies rather than having deep knowledge.
Get the MAC address from the ARP table, and look up the OIN, should help you determine if it’s virtual or physical, and if physical the type of NIC it’s using.
That gave nothing useful
Sorry, I meant the OUI ( was going by memory ) . It’s the part that you can look up that tells your what kind of device the MAC address belongs to.
Thanks!
Did this actually help?
The first few octets of the Mac address are unique to a manufacturer. This may at least help narrow which device it is. You can look it up at https://macaddress.io/
nmap -A -T4 -p- <IP>This is interesting. I had to modify it to nmap -A -T4 -p- -Pn <IP>.
It said the host is up with 0.077 seconds of latency. All 64k ports were scanned with 7 filtered tcp ports (host-unreachable) and the rest (no-response).
What’s weird about this is that it should be getting a response from IIS like you showed us in the screenshot.
77ms of latency is pretty slow. Based off that I’d assume (but not rule out) that it’s not: on the machine you used to run nmap, not on ethernet, probably wifi with a shitty connection
So, some really dumb, likely irrelevant, questions that might spark an idea:
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Do you see anything weird connected in the wifi client list? (You said it wasn’t given a dhcp lease, but it would still show as a wireless client even if it were static)
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Are you running a VPN server or using VPN to bridge any networks?
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You said you’re running dual WAN, are those configured properly and not leaking random internet shit into your LAN?
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Do you have anything that might be running some kind of out-of-band management system like DRAC on a dell server?
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What’s your IoT situation?
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Do you have an on-site NVR for security cams?
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Did you find the mac? If so what are the first 3 octets? Even if the vendor can’t be found, there’s always the chance some crazy ubernerd is going to recognize it. (If it’s 00:d0:2c or 44:d9:e7 I got ya covered)
Again, most of those are probably irrelevant, but throwing the thoughts out there :)
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You should try running the original command with elevated privileges,
sudo nmap ...on linux.
Depending on your router, it could have a docker setup with Windows on it. I’ve seen some strange shit on cheap routers with far too much processing power and storage.
I will probably have to shut all the devices off and put them back one by one. OMG that will take a long time.
It’s me. I’m your nextdoor neighbour. Sorry!
You don’t have Ethernet over power do you?
Fun story, I live in a townhome, I had so bizarre network issues going on. Not able to stream to TV etc. finally started unplugging shit. Unplugged the router and saw the computer still happily downloading something WTF! Turns out a neighbor also had Ethernet over power and devices were randomly connecting to their network. Crazy ass shit.
I’m confused. Are you talking about power over ethernet or power-line ethernet?
deleted by creator
Exactly, except mine was talking to the neighbors :p
That is IIS, all it means is you are probably talking to a windows server. Is the traffic encrypted? What port is it going to?
Is the traffic encrypted?
If it is, look at the certificate. Which hostname is it for primarily? Which SAN (Subject Alternative Name - basically a list of all other hostnames the certificate is valid for) are set, if any? Which Certificate Authority issued the certificate or is it self signed?
It shows NOT SECURE in the browser window
Windows 8 is starting to break out
lol!
