Re: easy DoS in most RPC apps

From: Peter van Dijk (peterat_private)
Date: Tue May 12 1998 - 10:41:21 PDT

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    Update: I tested the same trick on two NeXT Mach's. The portmapper is
    vulnerable there, as are possibly other services. NFS is not (not
    directly, a non-working portmapper does have it's effect) because it only
    uses UDP.
    
    Also, ftp.kernel.org (which runs Linux, I assume) is vulnerable ;(
    
    Greetz, Peter.
    
    On Mon, 11 May 1998, Peter van Dijk wrote:
    
    > On Sat, 28 Mar 1998, Peter van Dijk wrote:
    >
    > > If you connect (using telnet, netcat, anything) to a TCP port assigned to
    > > some RPC protocol (tested with rpc.nfsd/mountd/portmap on Slackware
    > > 3.4/Kernel 2.0.33) and send some 'garbage' (like a newline ;) every 5
    > > seconds or faster, the service will completely stop responding. At the
    > > very moment the connection is closed, the service will return to normal
    > > work again.
    > > read(0, "\r\n", 4000)                   = 2
    > >
    > [bullshit cut]
    > >
    > > This bug can easily be exploited remotely without any special software and
    > > without taking any noticeable bandwidth (one packet every 5 seconds).
    > > This one worked perfectly for me:
    > > $ { while true ; do echo ; sleep 5 ; done } | telnet localhost 2049
    > > Replacing the sleep 5 with sleep 6 or even more shows that the service
    > > will then respond every once in a while.
    >
    > Further examination and discussion (with Thomas Kukuk) shows that the bug
    > is probably in libc (and glibc?) and therefore probably affects _all_ rpc
    > applications using libc to do their rpc work (like, all Linux rpc
    > applications). Also, Wietse Venema responded today... Discussion still
    > starting up with him :)
    >
    > The impact of this bug should not be underestimated. Anything that depends
    > on nfs to function can be shutdown completely (temporarily, that is) with
    > little or no effort... You don't need maths to see that even someone with
    > a simple 28k8 line can shutdown 100s of sites at the same time.
    >
    > CERT: shouldn't you advise on this?
    >
    > Greetz, Peter.
    >
    > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    >  'Selfishness and separation have led me to   .      Peter 'Hardbeat' van Dijk
    >   to believe that the world is not my problem .    network security consultant
    >   I am the world. And you are the world.'     .               (yeah, right...)
    >           Live - 10.000 years (peace is now)  .        peterat_private
    > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    >   1:37am  up  9:35,  5 users,  load average: 0.41, 0.28, 0.18
    > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    >
    
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     'Selfishness and separation have led me to   .      Peter 'Hardbeat' van Dijk
      to believe that the world is not my problem .    network security consultant
      I am the world. And you are the world.'     .               (yeah, right...)
              Live - 10.000 years (peace is now)  .        peterat_private
    ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
      7:33pm  up 23:47,  3 users,  load average: 0.09, 0.13, 0.10
    ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    



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