NetQuake Protocol problem resulting in smurf like effect.

From: Q (qat_private)
Date: Fri May 22 1998 - 08:06:39 PDT

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    Greetings all,
    
      While happily idling on EFNet, several members of #LinuxOS found
    that they were coming under DoS attack from a user who had been repeatedly
    kicked and banned for his "haqur" attitude.  That is: touting
    an "elite" DoS attack, that he "couldn't distribute".  However, being a
    tech channel, and being more interested in how the problem worked than
    having this code, we managed to pry the following details, as to their
    accuracy I'm unsure.
    
    * Through the NQ (NetQuake) Protocol it is possible to send a spoofed
    connect request packet to several <i.e 400 or so> NetQuake Servers.  This
    then will result in a flood of attempted "Connect" requests from the
    servers' end to the target machine whether that target machine carries a
    copy of Quake or not. This may be perceived in a similar way to smurf
    attack, although I'm told it requires far less bandwidth "and can be done
    from even a 14.4"
    
    *  Apparently the fix is to send a DISCONNECT packet to each IP that tries
    sending UDP traffic in the attempt to initialize a NetQuake game.  This
    will cause the server "give up" trying to start a game, ending the flood.
    
    I would just like to now note, as a matter of courtesy: I and to the best
    of my knowledge, no member of #LinuxOS discovered this bug, or wrote any
    exploit code for it. I and the overwhelming majority of #LinuxOS felt
    that it would be far better to alert the general community to "yet
    another" DoS attack.
    
    I do not have the exploit or patch code, as I have said "AgentX"/"Playtex"
    on EFNet  (your friendly neighbourhood DoS supplier) was incredibly tight
    when it came to distributing any source code.  I would recommend asking
    him or one of his clique. I do however have tcpdump available from
    http://riva.gnu.net/nq-attack
    
    regards
    
    - q
    
    
    = To err is human, to forgive is Not Company Policy.
    ++- Q
      + - GNU Networks -http://www.gnu.net
      + - qat_private/http://riva.gnu.net
    



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