Is there a way to make netcraft report/detect a different OS & web server than the one your actually using?

erm, why would you want to?

If you use Apache1, change it in src/include/httpd.h and recompile.

For security resons. The less info an attacker has, the harder it is to gain access. Right? Not that I'm a prime target or anything, just curious if it could be done.

Security through obscurity, eh?

Well, don't assume there aren't other ways to get that kind of info.
; )

The main reason for doing this is to guard against a 0-day exploit that is released to the kiddies. The "Know your enemy" book from the honeynet project postulates that over 60% of all attacks are launched on the back of internet scans, with kiddies continually scanning class A blocks looking for known vulnerable versions of software.

If I have a canned exploit for "Microsoft-IIS 5.0" then I scan port 80 looking for it. Once I amass enough targets then I go exploit them to put Stacheldracht or Trinoo on. Its a status symbol for the kiddies to claim that they 0wn3d 75 IIS servers, or whatever.

Fudging your web header is possible on every web server (iPlanet, Apache, IIS) but the method is different in each case. Be aware if your are using IIS (though if you are why are you posting here?) that whilst URLScan purports to be able to change the web header, doing it breaks multi-part PDF downloads (i.e. PDF's of more than a single page). You are better in that case to hex edit the DLL.

Apache is by far the easiest/best in this respect.

0-day exploits - sometimes security through obscurity is all that you have got. ;>

Flibble

What about changing it in RedHat 9? ...or fedora core1?

Thanks,
Chris

The distro doesn't matter in this situation, its within apache the changes need to be changed like mentioned above.

And also the security thru obscurity, yeah, no point really. Changing your httpd server to make it look like its another OS and webserver isn't gonna do jack for you to tell you the truth.

You should learn real security methods instead of wasting your time with these silly one's. Check out the sticky thread in Security where unspawn has made a list of valuable links to different security sites, information, howto's and such. Very good list of links with plethora of information.

Regards.

for those who want to know... the answer is stupid simple.
Someone already replied as to how to do it in apache1. I (like most people now) run apache 2.

you must have the headers module or this line in httpd.conf:
LoadModule headers_module modules/mod_headers.so

then in httpd.conf apply this line:

Header set Server "your server name here"

Netcraft will cache entries for a time so the changes wont take affect there right away...

see what your headers say by using:
http://www.grc.com/id/idserve.htm
or
http://www.delorie.com/web/headers.html
or
http://web-sniffer.net/