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
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.
It’s the default page for a Windows Server running IIS web server.
Windows 8 is starting to break out
lol!
Others haven’t suggested this yet, but a single device, like your laptop, even with one connection, can have two IPs.
Thanks. It is neither the Ethernet nor the Wi-Fi on my windows laptop.,
Don’t just turn your devices off when testing - - unplug them. An off computer can still respond to network requests.
I did not think of this. I will have to go into the bios to turn off the battery of my work laptop.
There’s Power Over Ethernet too.
The default home page for Microsoft IIS, the web server built into Windows Server (and probably some desktop builds too).
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.
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
Maybe I want my vibrating dildo to take an hour to load and come with spyware
I have a Bluetooth controlled vibrator. Reverse engineered the app (which has a chat function) and it has a blacklist of words (mainly Chinese) you’re not allowed to text using the app.
I did not check if your horny chat gets copied to Chinese spy agencies, but I suspect that will be done on the server.
load and come
Hey, I’m not normally one to judge but it seems like a bad idea to call yourself spyware. Either you’re going to blow your cover or it’s just negative self talk.
blow
I mean, Windows already fucks us metaphorically
Besides the MAC lookup suggestion, have you tried to simply find hostname in local DNS by reverse IP lookup, maybe that would shed some light.
Not sure if there is anything useful, but in browser just check site source, maybe there is something useful there that could help with identification. Does site have certificate? It might include info that would help with identification. Do the standard browser network trace via dev tools F12, maybe something useful appears there.
In nmap you can attempt to guess OS, try that. Additionally it might be possible to get hostname as well.
And have you checked your router to see if this connection is connected to your Wi-Fi AP or Ethernet to narrow things down? If it is not possible to determine this from router, simply connect your main PC to Ethernet, disable AP in router settings and check if IIS site is still up. If it is not, enable AP again, does it come back early or it takes some time?
Lastly, if it still is a mystery, start powering off devices one by one to find the source. Based on comments it seems you have multiple devices, but I assume it would not take that long?
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
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/
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?
… So when you port scanned it, IIS was gone?
nmap’s seeing the 1-9999 as the next argument (expecting an IP address). In -Pn, the n is a placeholder for the port numbers you want to scan, so you want -P1-9999
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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There was an appliance where the wifi chip was at the end of the power cable, embedded inside the plug. From the outside, you couldn’t really tell. It was there so radiation inside the box couldn’t affect the wireless signal as much.
I can imagine some genius thinking it’s a good idea to run a server from inside a cable or a connected home appliance.
Sounds like purchasing got a deal on surplus spook gear.
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.
Yeah and giving a potential attacker your account details while trying to log on?
Eyeballing the login screen may give some insight, you’re right that its probably unwise to try real creds if you don’t recognize the server.
It is a home network. Configured by someone who understands the basics, but is mostly following recipeies rather than having deep knowledge.
How insanely small was the transfer? Like 1 bit?
9 packets