Re: CERT Advisory CA-98.13 - TCP/IP Denial of Service

From: Ulf Munkedal (munkedal@N-M.COM)
Date: Wed Dec 23 1998 - 02:17:48 PST

  • Next message: Martin Forssen: "Re: Why you should avoid world-writable directories"

    Have I missed something on the list lately about these illegal packets that
    CERT are adressing ("constructing a sequence of packets with certain
    characteristics, an intruder can cause vulnerable systems to crash, hang,
    or behave in unpredictable ways")?
    
    Or is this just the old teardrop/newtear/boink/bonk/nestea2 problem that
    they are talking about?
    
    Ulf
    ---
    Ulf Munkedal
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    Neupart & Munkedal
    http://www.n-m.com
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    SecureTest
    - Vished for Internet-sikkerhed
    
    
    ----------
    From:   aleph1at_private[SMTP:aleph1at_private]
    Reply To:       Bugtraq List
    Sent:   22. december 1998 06:37
    To:     BUGTRAQat_private
    Subject:        CERT Advisory CA-98.13 - TCP/IP Denial of Service
    
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    CERT Advisory CA-98-13-tcp-denial-of-service
    
       Original Issue Date: December 21, 1998
    
       Last Revised
    
    Topic: Vulnerability in Certain TCP/IP Implementations
    
    Affected Systems
    
       Some systems with BSD-derived TCP/IP stacks. See Appendix A for a
       complete list of affected systems.
    
    Overview
    
       Intruders can disrupt service or crash systems with vulnerable TCP/IP
       stacks. No special access is required, and intruders can use
       source-address spoofing to conceal their true location.
    
    I. Description
    
       By carefully constructing a sequence of packets with certain
       characteristics, an intruder can cause vulnerable systems to crash,
       hang, or behave in unpredictable ways. This vulnerability is similar
       in its effect to other denial-of-service vulnerabilities, including
       the ones described in
    
         http://www.cert.org/advisories/CA-97.28.Teardrop_Land.html
    
       Specifically, intruders can use this vulnerability in conjunction with
       IP-source-address spoofing to make it difficult or impossible to know
       their location. They can also use the vulnerability in conjunction
       with broadcast packets to affect a large number of vulnerable machines
       with a small number of packets.
    
    II. Impact
    
       Any remote user can crash or hang a vulnerable machine, or cause the
       system to behave in unpredictable ways.
    
    III. Solution
    
    A. Install a patch from your vendor.
    
       Appendix A contains input from vendors who have provided information
       for this advisory. We will update the appendix as we receive more
       information. If you do not see your vendor's name, the CERT/CC did not
       hear from that vendor. Please contact your vendor directly.
    
    B. Configure your router or firewall to help prevent source-address
    spoofing.
    
       We encourage sites to configure their routers or firewalls to reduce
       the ability of intruders to use source-address spoofing. Currently,
       the best method to reduce the number of IP-spoofed packets exiting
       your network is to install filtering on your routers that requires
       packets leaving your network to have a source address from your
       internal network. This type of filter prevents a source IP-spoofing
       attack from your site by filtering all outgoing packets that contain a
       source address of a different network.
    
       A detailed description of this type of filtering is available in RFC
       2267, "Network Ingress Filtering: Defeating Denial of Service Attacks
       which employ IP Source Address Spoofing" by Paul Ferguson of Cisco
       Systems, Inc. and Daniel Senie of Blazenet, Inc. We recommend it to
       both Internet Service Providers and sites that manage their own
       routers. The document is currently available at
    
         http://info.internet.isi.edu:80/in-notes/rfc/files/rfc2267.txt
    
       Note that this type of filtering does not protect a site from the
       attack itself, but it does reduce the ability of intruders to conceal
       their location, thereby discouraging attacks.
    
    Appendix A - Vendor Information
    
       Berkeley Software Design, Inc. (BSDI)
    
       BSDI's current release BSD/OS 4.0 is not vulnerable to this problem.
       BSD/OS 3.1 is vulnerable and a patch (M310-049) is available from
       BSDI's WWW server at http://www.bsdi.com/support/patches or via our
       ftp server from the directory
       ftp://ftp.bsdi.com/bsdi/patches/patches-3.1.
    
       Cisco Systems
    
       Cisco is not vulnerable.
    
       Compaq Computer Corporation
    
       SOURCE: (c) Copyright 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998 Compaq Computer
       Corporation.
    
       All rights reserved.
    
       SOURCE: Compaq Computer Corporation
       Compaq Services
       Software Security Response Team USA
    
       This reported problem is not present for the as shipped, Compaq's
       Digital ULTRIX or Compaq's Digital UNIX Operating Systems Software.
    
         - Compaq Computer Corporation
    
       Data General Corporation
    
       We are investigating. We will provide an update when our investigation
       is complete.
    
       FreeBSD, Inc.
    
       FreeBSD 2.2.8 is not vulnerable.
       FreeBSD versions prior to 2.2.8 are vulnerable.
       FreeBSD 3.0 is also vulnerable.
       FreeBSD 3.0-current as of 1998/11/12 is not vulnerable.
    
       A patch is available at
       ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/CERT/patches/CA-98-13/patch
    
       Fujitsu
    
       Regarding this vulnerability, Fujitsu's UXP/V operating system is not
       vulnerable.
    
       Hewlett-Packard Company
    
       HP is not vulnerable.
    
       IBM Corporation
    
       AIX is not vulnerable.
    
       IBM and AIX are registered trademarks of International Business
       Machines Corporation.
    
       Livingston Enterprises, Inc.
    
       Livingston systems are not vulnerable.
    
       Computer Associates International
    
       CA systems are not vulnerable.
    
       Microsoft Corporation
    
       Microsoft is not vulnerable.
    
       NEC Corporation
    
       NEC Corporation EWS-UX, UP-UX and UX/4800 Unix systems are not
       vulnerable to this problem.
    
       OpenBSD
    
       Security fixes for this problem are now available for 2.3 and 2.4.
    
       For 2.3, see
    
         www.openbsd.org/errata23.html#tcpfix
    
       For our 2.4 release which is available on CD on Dec 1, see
    
         www.openbsd.org/errata.html#tcpfix
    
       The bug is fixed in our -current source tree.
    
       Sun Microsystems, Inc.
    
       We have confirmed that SunOS and Solaris are not vulnerable to the DOS
       attack.
    
       Wind River Systems, Inc.
    
       We've taken a look at our networking code and have determined that
       this is not a problem in the currently shipping version of the VxWorks
       RTOS.
         _________________________________________________________________
    
    Contributors
    
       The vulnerability was originally discovered by Joel Boutros of the
       Enterprise Security Services team of Cambridge Technology Partners.
       Guido van Rooij of FreeBSD, Inc., provided an analysis of the
       vulnerability and information regarding its scope and extent.
       ______________________________________________________________________
    
       This document is available from:
       http://www.cert.org/advisories/CA-98-13-tcp-denial-of-service.html.
       ______________________________________________________________________
    
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       Revision History
    
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