Re: FTP denial of service attack

From: Henrik Nordstrom (hnoat_private)
Date: Tue Dec 07 1999 - 16:26:42 PST

  • Next message: antirezat_private: "Re: FTP denial of service attack"

    Darren Reed wrote:
    
    > ftpd's which limit connections to 1 per user@host or similar may have some
    > defense against this, or if they don't support multiple data connections
    > open at the same time.
    
    
    FTP does NOT support multiple data channels. The standard says that the
    server MUST close the previous connection if the user agent initiates a
    new channel (by using PORT/PASV). All FTP servers I have tried does
    this.
    
    This attack is a TCP FIN_WAIT2 attack. I.e. it is more of an TCP DOS
    than an FTP DOS. Any TCP service which accepts unlimited rate of
    connections can be attacked in this way if you can affort (or spoof) to
    have that number of TCP connection open. The main difference from other
    FIN_WAIT2 attacks is that the FTP service usually does not log each
    individual data channel connection, making it hard to locate once the
    attacker has closed down the attack.
    
    --
    Henrik Nordstrom
    



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