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What is Security ?
Part I
Meletis A. Belsis
Information Security Consultant MPhil / MSc / BSc CWNA/CWSP, C|EH, CCSA, Network+, ISO27001LA
Profiling Adversaries
Adversaries that target corporate system are numerous: These can be general classified in the following categories:
Hackers Employees (both malicious and unintentional) Terrorists groups Governments Opposing Industries
Security
BUT what is security anyway ? Many people fail to understand the meaning of the word. Many corporations install an antivirus software, and/or a firewall and believe they are protected.
Are they ?
Security through obscurity Consider some cases : An internal employee wants to revenge the company and so publishes private corporate information on the NET. The terrorist attack on the twin towers (in USA) had as a result many corporations to close. Why ? An employee forgets his laptop into a caf. This laptop contains all corporate private information. HOW CAN A FIREWALL PROTECT FROM THE PREVIOUS ?
Security contains a number of tools , processes and techniques. These in general cover three main requirements:
Confidentiality Integrity Availability
C
Pers pecti ve
Depending on the security requirements a system has, one can concentrate only on one of the previous or all of them. A new requirement enforced by the operation of e-markets is non-repudiation.
Information Gathering
The first step to hacking is to gather as much information as possible for the target. This information is later used to draw a map of the corporate network. This map is used to define and design an attack methodology as well as identify the needed attack tools. The extreme case of information gathering is called dumpster diving
Searching public WHOIS databases :Provide information about the domain name of the company. Searching the ARIN Whois Database: Provide a database with all register IP addresses. Searching technical forums using either the name of the administrator or the name of the company.
When the initial search has finished, it is now time to ASK the network itself. Believe it or not most networks are quite polite. DNS Interrogation. It can be performed by simple using the nslookup program. Using the PING command (ICMP Echo ). Can unveil hosts that are connected and are not protected by a firewall. Using the TraceRoute command we can identify which is the IP of the router that connects the corporate network to the Internet.
Information Gathering :Identify Running Services Having a map of the internet hosts that are accessible from the internet, we must now identify the services that they offer and the operating system that is installed on each host. Special programs like nmap and superscanner are used to interrogate each port in a host. Detecting Services
The Scanner tries to open a connection to each port of the target host (By sending Syn messages) . The open ports that respond show the services that are running.
Detecting the OS
The Scanner sends specific erroneous message to the ports. OS response with different messages.
Many firewalls can detect these scanning attempts. So scanners use some alternate techniques: Slow Scanning Distributed Scanning Half Open Connection Fragmented packets XMAS FIN FTP Bounce
Password Cracking
VIRUSES
Computer Viruses are categorised in:
Normal viruses Trojan Horses WORMS
Pointer to Virus Code Initialization Code Initialization Code
Virus Code
Today there are more than 2,500 virus ready to be downloaded. A user can get infected by:
Running a program Opening an email Visiting a web site (evil Trojan) Opening a .doc file
Ending Code
Today virus creation and mutation centres can be freely downloaded from the Internet
The idea behind these attacks is to make the target system unavailable to its authorised users. Typical attacks include but not limited to :
Ping O Death (sending packets of size greater that 65,535) SYN Flooding Attack (Starting Many half-open connections) Smurf Attack (sending requests to broadcast address with a spoofed IP address) Domain Name Server DoS (Requesting DNS quires from multiple DNS Servers with a Spoofed IP
SynFlood Attack
Legitimate Connection
Legitimate userr
Smurf Attack
Computer Computer Computer
ICMP Echo
Network A
Broadcast Address
ICMP Echo
Workstation
Workstation
Workstation
Netwrok B
Broadcast Address
ICMP Echo
Network C
ICMP Echo
Target
Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) Hackers have used the distributed power internet offers. Tools are now perform DoS attack from multiple hosts at the same time. Examples are:
Tribal Flood Network TFN2K Stacheldraft
Attackers Commands Attacker Client Software Command Attackers Coomand
Command Command
Client
Sniffing
Ethernet provides the ability to run a network card in Promiscuous mode. This allows the card to read any packet travelling on the network. Sniffing software are using this to read all data transmitted in the local net. Sniffers can be programmed to steal information associated only with specific protocols or programs. i.e. read all information from http packets only. Some sniffers can be even programmed to transmit sniffed passwords back to the attacker. The first and most used sniffer is the TCPDump .
Social Engineering
One of the oldest and easiest form of hacking.
<Hacker is calling the administrator > Hallo I am <<name of an employee>>. My user name <<user name as seen on email address>>. I am new to the company but I forgot my system password <<be very unhappy>> but my manager ask to find him some files. If I tell him that I forgot my password , I am afraid that he is going to fire me. Please help <<be persuasive>>>> <Administrator wants to help a fellow employee> Ok. Do not cry now. That is why we are here for. I am going to reset your password to newpassoword. Just do not forget it again. <Hacker thanks the polite employee> Oh thank you so much. I am going to buy the coffee when we meet. You are a lifesaver.
(The scenario works even better is the hacker is a female and the administrator is a male.)
IP Spoofing
Hackers usually change the IP address in their datagrams. This happens for two reasons:
To avoid getting caught. To bypass security tools, and systems that allow trusted connections.
Changing just the IP is called a blind attack, because the hacker never sees the response from the target. In order to see the response the hacker has a number of ways:
Install a sniffer to the target network. Use Source Routing Use ICMP redirect If both hacker and target are located on the same network use ARP spoofing. DNS cache Poisoning.
Software programs like A4 proxy allows hackers to use a number of anonymous servers before they attack. Thus their real IP is almost untraceable.
Is it possible ?
Total security is not feasible. Systems must be secured depending on their value. Security measures are applied according to the threat level a system has. The first step is to understand the threats, to your corporate systems. This can be done by a risk analysis process. In this stage remember that security is a business requirement
The first security measure is to seal the internal network from the outside world. This is performed by developing a network called Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). The DMZ contains all the servers that must be accessible from the outside world NOTE that we must always assume that servers in the DMZ are going to be hacked at some point.
Internet
Web Server Firewall DMZ Firewall Internal Network SMTP Server Client
Client
Firewalls
Firewalls exist into types:
Packet filters: Are operating on the protocol level. They use a firewalling policy to allow the packet to pass or to drop the packet. Proxy Servers: They operate at the application level. They are always located between the user requests and the servers response. Thus allowing us to enforce policies on which users can access the internet and on which port.
Packet Filters are usually located on the router, while Proxies are installed on computers A network may use any number of the previous depending its size and architecture. Known Firewalls are Checkpoints Firewall-1, Cisco PIX, Microsofts ISA.
Internet
Router
Web Server
Signature based : They hold a database of known attacks and they test packets against the data stored in the database. Anomaly based: They test the traffic against anomalies. I.e. why does the network has so heavy traffic at 2 in the morning ?
DMZ Client
SMTP Server
IDS Sensor
Internal Network
When the IDS detects an attack it inform the administrator with a number of ways : email, sms, pager
Client
Honey Pots
These are the sacrificed lamps of a network. Honey pots are software programs that when installed on a computer they can simulate a number of systems i.e.:
Windows NT Server. Unix Server. Apache Server Microsoft Exchange Server
These simulated systems look unprotected from the outside world (i.e. open ports, default accounts, known exploits. Hackers scanning for victims detect the simulated systems and try to hack them. The honey pots allow hackers to enter but record all their moves and inform the administrator. Honey pots can be installed either in the DMZ or in the local network.
Anti sniffing
The general idea is to make the sniffing host reply to a message that he should not be able to listen.
For example creating a packet with a fake MAC address but with the IP address of the sniffing host. If the host acknowledges the packet the it is in promiscuous mode.
Another way is to transmit unencrypted login details for a fake (honey pot) server to the network. If someone tries to use this account then someone is sniffing the network. NOTE that using switches instead of hubs will make a sniffers life much more difficult.
Antivirus
Antivirus programs are known to most users. Such programs can be applied either as
Standalone : Each copy of the program is responsible of protecting the specific host on which it is installed. Network based : Each copy of the program is responsible of protecting the specific host, but they are all managed by a Antivirus Server.
Note that using an antivirus program without updating its virus database does not provide protection
Security Awareness
No matter what security tools are going to be used, if users do not know about security, hacks are going to be common. There are many ways to educate users on the issues of security:
Use of seminars Use of posters Use of e-mail messages Enforce penalties
Security Awareness
Security systems must be regularly tested for flaws. These flaws are usually created from bugs in the software programs, or from bad management (i.e. bad passwords) The process of testing a system is called penetration testing. The process uses a number of hacking / security programs that test a system for a number of known flaws and provide advice on securing these flaws
Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer: Tests the systems for known bugs
Encryption/ Decryption Digital Signatures / PKI AAA Security Protocols Physical Security
The Jaguar Paradigm The polite Employees paradigm
Security Policy
Thank You.