I'm working with a customer who seems to have public IPv6 addresses show up on various 'what is my public IP address' websites, despite their network being strictly IPv4. Their setup consists of a single /24 network with one router/gateway/firewall, and I've found no evidence of IPv6-to-IPv4 translation technologies. Their ISP mainly offers IPv4, and you have to specifically request IPv6, which hasn't been configured. All their computers are running Windows 11, primarily using Google Chrome for browsing. I'm curious if there might be some Chrome feature that's enabling this or if there's something I'm missing. I also discovered that a staff member may have used a browser extension for a secondary VPN service, but they likely don't have an active subscription for it. My customer is very security-conscious, so I'm eager to get to the bottom of this and find a solution. Any ideas on what could be happening here?
3 Answers
It's likely that a VPN is tunneling IPv6 traffic through Google's infrastructure. That would explain why the public address appears as IPv6 when they're actually using an IPv4 setup.
Consider turning off the 'Use secure DNS' setting in the browser. That could be why it's displaying Google's secure DNS server instead of the actual WAN IP address.
You might want to check the browser settings. In Chrome, look for options like 'IP Protection Proxy', 'Data Compression Proxy', or 'Safe Browsing'—these could influence how IP addresses are reported. It's worth a shot!
Thanks, I found the Safe Browsing option. I'm hesitant to disable it since it seems beneficial, but I wonder if that's part of the issue. I'm still exploring other possible reasons to rule out any obscure settings.
Which VPN are you referring to? I wasn't aware they had any active VPN service.