Protection Against and Detecting Fingerprinting
Protection against all types of TCP/IP fingerprinting is achieved through TCP/IP fingerprint obfuscators. Also known as fingerprint scrubbing, tools exist for MS Windows, Linux, FreeBSD, and likely others.
Moreover, protection against active fingerprinting attempts is achieved by limiting the type and amount of traffic a system responds to. Examples include the following: blocking of all unnecessary outgoing ICMP traffic, especially unusual packet types like address masks and timestamps. Also, blocking of any ICMP echo replies. Be warned that blocking things without knowing exactly what they are for can very well lead to a broken network; for instance, your network could become a black hole. Alternatively, active fingerprinting tools themselves have fingerprints that can be detected.
Defeating TCP/IP fingerprinting may provide limited protection from potential attackers who employ a vulnerability scanner to select machines of a specific target OS. However, a determined adversary may simply try a series of different attacks until one is successful.
Read more about this topic: TCP/IP Stack Fingerprinting
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