Security Issues – Banner Grabbing

Issue: Banner grabbing performed on web server via port 80, reveals apache version

How to fix this issue?

Open the terminal and do the following as root:

Edit the apache configuration file.

vim /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf

In Mac OS X:

vim /etc/apache2/extra/httpd-default.conf

Find the ServerSignature directive.
In the vim editor, press [ESC] and type ServerSignature
This will locate where the said directive is.
By default, it is set to On. Now, change it to Off.

ServerSignature Off

Find the ServerTokens directive.
In the vim editor, press [ESC] and type ServerTokens
Set this to Prod

ServerTokens Prod

Save and exit from the editor by pressing [ESC] and typing wq.

Restart apache.

service httpd restart

or

/etc/init.d/httpd restart

In Mac OS:

apachectl -k restart

Having this two directives set makes sure no one can get your server version using the banner grabbing side of enumeration.