Totally Stealthy Router

In response to the post detailing router response to port scans, one of my readers asked an interesting question:

“I was wondering if there was a way to prevent the router from sending those TCP RST packets administratively prohibited ICMP messages back to scanners for TCP and UDP respectively. I basically want my router to drop all packets period without replying back in any way, shape, form, or fashion.”

Here's how you do it:

• No TCP RST packets should be sent as responses to port scans. Inbound access list dropping all IP packets achieves that.
• Outbound traffic, both from the protected LAN as well as from the router itself (ping, telnet, DNS, NTP ...) should be allowed. Configure ip inspect with router-traffic option.
• Disable generation of ICMP unreachables with the no ip unreachables interface configuration command.

The relevant parts of router configuration are included below:

ip inspect name Internet tcp router-traffic
ip inspect name Internet udp router-traffic
ip inspect name Internet icmp router-traffic
!
interface FastEthernet0/0
 ip address a.b.c.d x.y.z.w
 ip access-group Internet in
 no ip unreachables
 ip inspect Internet out
!
ip access-list extended Internet
 deny ip any any

Note: This article is part of You've asked for it series.