Transcript Tactics to Discover “Passive” Monitoring Devices [email protected] The Problem at Hand Local ether segments behave like party-line phone systems Without encryption there are no.

Tactics to Discover “Passive”
Monitoring Devices
[email protected]
The Problem at Hand
Local ether segments behave like party-line phone systems
Without encryption there are no secrets
A
C
B
E
D
G
F
A-B : CDEFGH can listen in
A-H : BCDEFG can listen in
Etc. etc.
H
How Systems Know What to
Listen To
Ether header
payload
…
Ether header
Read a packet from
the network
Network Interface Card
decision flow
Is the dest ether
header my MAC
address?
yes
Make a copy of the
packet and hand it
to the OS stack
no
payload
Systems are courteous
largely for
performance. Hardware
filtering at the NIC
hands up only the
packets the system is
supposed to receive.
Promiscuous mode
tells the NIC that all
packets should be
handed to the OS stack.
Not just the ones with
the matching MAC
destination address.
Ether and IP Headers
6 bytes
Ether
IP
6 bytes
Destination Address
4
4
vers
len
Source Address
8
16
TOS
Total length (bytes)
16
identification
8
TTL
3
13
flags
fragment offset
8
16
protocol
checksum
32
Source IP Address
32
Destination IP Address
2 bytes
type
Application
Transport
Network
Link
Telnet, SMTP, etc
TCP, UDP
IP, ICMP
Device Driver,
Interface card
4 layers of TCP/IP
protocol suite
The Disconnect
Application
Presentation
Session
Transport
Network
Data
Physical
DNS Method
Definition
•The Domain Naming System maps IP addresses to names and
vice-versa.
•DNS allows hierarchical grouping of domain
•DNS is a necessity for human convenience
% telnet foo.bar.baz
Trying 10.10.12.132 …
Connected to foo.bar.baz.
Q: Who is foo.bar.baz?
A: foo.bar.baz is 10.10.12.132
(follow up by initiating TCP
connection to port 23)
DNS Method 1
Sniffing the Sniffer
•Spoofed packets are sent out on the local network
•The network is sniffed looking for reverse DNS lookups on spoofed packet
•Any systems asking about the fictitious systems is in promiscuous mode
Who is 10.0.0.5?
192.168.1.10
10.0.0.5
Bogus System 1
Sniffer
Src 10.0.0.5 -> Dst 10.0.0.6
10.0.0.6
Bogus System 2
DNS Method 2
Queries to DNS Server
•The DNS server is under our control
•Spoofed packets with addresses handled by the DNS server are sent out on the local network
•Any requests that the DNS server receives for the spoofed machines are from machines in
promiscuous mode
Net 10
DNS
Server
router
192.168.1.10
Sniffer
Whois 10.0.0.5?
10.0.0.5
Bogus System 1
Src 10.0.0.5 -> Dst 10.0.0.6
Net 192.168.1
10.0.0.6
Bogus System 2
DNS Method
Pros and Cons
Pros
•Can work across multiple networks
•Names of machines are very telling
and as such, many malicious sniffers
will do the reverse lookups
•Does not saturate the local network
•High reliability – minimal false
positives
Cons
•Sniffing systems do not have
to perform reverse lookups
•Sniffing systems can do batch
reverse lookups later on – this
defeats method 1 but not
method 2
Ether Tricks
Definition
Ether tricks work by intentionally mismapping layer 2 and layer 3 addresses
192.168.1.10
08:00:20:10:22:e0
!=
192.168.1.10
66:66:66:66:66:66
Ether Tricks 1
Linux Classic
When in promiscuous mode the NIC does not filter the
ether address.
The kernel must filter the ether address on its own.
Normal behavior for non-promiscuous mode
ICMP – Echo Request
Correct ether address
Correct IP address
ICMP – Echo Reply
Ether Tricks 1
linux (cont)
Normal behavior for non-promiscuous mode
ICMP – Echo Request
In-correct ether address
Correct IP address
No response as NIC
did not pass the packet
to the stack
Ether Tricks 1
linux (cont)
Older linux behavior for promiscuous mode
ICMP – Echo Request
In-correct ether address
Correct IP address
ICMP – Echo Reply
NIC had to pass all
traffic to OS. OS
forgot to check the
MAC address and only
looked at IP
Ether Tricks 2
BSD Style Problems
Older BSD behavior for promiscuous mode
ICMP – Echo Request
In-correct ether address
Broadcast IP address
ICMP – Echo Reply
NIC had to pass all
traffic to OS. OS
forgot to check the
MAC address and only
looked at IP (took a
different path for
broadcast)
Ether Tricks 3
Microsoft Shortcut
6 bytes
Ether Address
What the NIC filters on
4 bytes
Word
What many MS software drivers
check when in promisc
ff:ff:ff:ff:00:00|IP|ICMP echo request
Equivalent to be ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff on many promisc NT systems
Ether Tricks
Pros and Cons
Pros
•High reliability, low
false positives
Cons
•Limited to local ether segment
•Dependent upon particular
OS/Kernel “nuances”
Machine Latency
defined
Hardware filtering
•Discards packets not addressed to correct MAC address
•Handled by on-card logic
•Minimal impact on system performance as few interrupts
•Kernel not called in to process unless really needed
•Match criteria == MAC, broadcast, multicast
Software filtering
•All packets must be copied and handed over to OS
•On-card logic bypassed
•Severe impact on system performance due to maximum interrupts
•Kernel must process packets
•Malicious sniffing often happens in user space – context shift from
Kernel to User space is expensive
Machine Latency
example
A
C
B
A – ether: 08:00:20:ac:1e:e2 IP: 192.168.1.10
B – ether: 08:00:20:ac:22:16 IP: 192.168.1.12
C – ether: 08:00:20:ac:23:e4 IP: 192.168.1.14
Machine Latency
example
1
A
C
2
1 – ICMP Echo Request
Ether Src: 08:00:20:ac:1e:e2
Ether Dst: 08:00:20:ac:23:e4
IP Source: 192.168.1.10
IP Dest: 192.168.1.14
Latency == 2 ms
B
2 – ICMP Echo Request
Ether Src: 08:00:20:ac:1e:e2
Ether Dst: 08:00:20:ac:22:16
IP Source: 192.168.1.10
IP Dest: 192.168.1.12
Latency == 3 ms
A – ether: 08:00:20:ac:1e:e2 IP: 192.168.1.10
B – ether: 08:00:20:ac:22:16 IP: 192.168.1.12
C – ether: 08:00:20:ac:23:e4 IP: 192.168.1.14
Machine Latency
example
1
A
C
2
2 – ICMP Echo Request
Ether Src: 08:00:20:ac:1e:e2
Ether Dst: 08:00:20:ac:22:16
IP Source: 192.168.1.10
IP Dest: 192.168.1.12
3
B
1 – ICMP Echo Request
Ether Src: 08:00:20:ac:1e:e2
Ether Dst: 08:00:20:ac:23:e4
IP Source: 192.168.1.10
IP Dest: 192.168.1.14
Latency == 4 ms
3 – ICMP Echo Request
Ether Src: 66:66:66:66:66:67
Ether Dst: 66:66:66:66:66:66
IP Source: 192.168.1.30
IP Dest: 192.168.1.33
Latency == 300 ms
A – ether: 08:00:20:ac:1e:e2 IP: 192.168.1.10
B – ether: 08:00:20:ac:22:16 IP: 192.168.1.12
C – ether: 08:00:20:ac:23:e4 IP: 192.168.1.14
Machine Latency
Methods for increasing end-node processing
•Fake entire three way handshake
•Fake connections to well known sniffed ports
•Use “legitimate” ether addresses that still have no physical presence
•Fake huge numbers of sessions
•Fake huge numbers of SYN recv’d states
The trick is to make the sniffing application
process as much as possible in user space
Machine Latency
Pros and Cons
Pros
•Cross platform
•Often times crashes sniffing programs
•Confined to local segment
•High accuracy in watching deltas for a particular machine over
time
Cons
•Limited to local ether segment
•Assumptions must be made about systems response under load
•Network and regular machine load assumptions must be made
•Network congestion
Spotting the curious
•Create fictitious connections to a real machine
•Use a ‘trap’ account
•Watch and log on the legitimate machine for
anyone attempting to log on with the ‘trap’ account