Windows 10: Seeing a Mac over a network

I'm using the latest version of windows 10 and cannot get my PC to recognize the Mac that is also on the network in file explorer. It does recognize the other PC on the network. All have the same workgroup name. The Mac recognizes both PC's.



Bob

:)

 

Mystery Phone Listing on Network


That's actually been happening in Windows for a long time, even back to windows 8 I was seeing it randomly appear (it can be different devices). It seems to be some kind of false positive detection.

Some suggest that this is neighbors connecting to your wifi network. The idea is that the MAC address may be propogated, even though these neighbors are not actually authorized for your network (ie, your router is advertising these mac addresses, but they can't actually use your network, but for some reason they still show up in the list of connected devices).

When you check your WIFI router, the devices won't be listed there, since they haven't been given IP's.. but something in the network architecture still allows MAC advertisement.

 

Kick or Ban who is connected with my internet ?


You would have to do that on your Router's setup webpage. 1st step is to turn on WiFi encryption and password. 2nd step, if you feel you need to, is set up an access list of the physical MAC addresses for the network adapters of the computers you want to allow to connect. Any other network adapter not on that MAC filter list won't be able to connect. (but MAC addresses can be easily spoofed, if the third person knows which MAC addresses are allowed).

 

What is this network device?


I woke my desktop PC from sleep this morning, clicked on Network and immediately spotted a Phone in the device list that doesn't belong to anyone here (a Blu brand phone which is unusual enough that I would know about it).

I clicked on the device and was able to view the MAC address, but nothing else useful. A couple minutes later it disappeared from the network list.

Then a few minutes later I went and looked at another PC on the same home network and saw the same phone in its Network list. It also disappeared a couple minutes after I clicked open 'Network'.

Scanned both PCs with various anti-malware programs including Malwarebytes - they look clean.

Any suggestions on what I was seeing, and if it's malicious how to deal with it?


UPDATE: It popped back up again. I checked my router's connection list and don't see it there. For now I blocked the MAC address in my router but would still like to know where this is coming from.