Re: Anyone can take over virtually any domain on the net...

From: BUGTRAQat_private
Date: Fri Jan 14 2000 - 07:26:44 PST

  • Next message: Russ Johnson: "Re: Anyone can take over virtually any domain on the net..."

    I didn't think you could spoof a domain registration change so easily;
    looking at this post: "http://www.sans.org/y2k/123199-1305.htm", It
    says:
    
    "This is the Domain Name Registration Agreement you recently created. In
    order to complete this modification,
        YOU MUST E-MAIL THIS FORM TO: hostmasterat_private
    After you e-mail this form, you should receive an auto-reply with a
    tracking number. You must use that number in the Subject of any future
    messages you send regarding this registration action. Once this
    registration action is completed you will receive a notification via
    e-mail."
    
    This confims what I always thought; that there was a unique number in
    the response that was needed for the ACK. You know- it is similar to
    when you subscribe to an email mailing list and they request an ACK and
    the ACK has to have a unique number in it. Those email messages you get
    from Network Solutions have a funny number in the subject line- I
    thought it was used as follows:
    
    For a domain alteration, I thought it was that
    1) Hostmaster/Domain owner sends Change Request -->
    2) NSolutions gets Change Request <--
    3) NSolutions sends Ack Request w/ unique confimation number -->
    4) Hostmaster gets Ack Request w/ unique confimation number <--
    5) Hostmaster must send Ack Reply w/ unique confimation number -->
    6) NSolutions gets Ack Reply, and checks that the unique identifier to
    confirm it was a true response to the Ack Request. <--
    
    I didn't think that the change would go through unless the Ack Reply had
    that unique number.
    
    Now, that being said, I always had in my mind a way to do the spoof
    anyway, because the numbers in the Internic email messages always looked
    like they were generated with the time/date and some sequential number,
    and there didn't seem to be anything random in them.
    
    So I'll mention how I figured you could go a step further to engineer a
    working spoof.
    
    1) Start with two or three domains that you have ownership of,
    MyOne.com, MyTwo.COM and MyThree.COM, TakeOver.com (TakeOver.com is the
    domain you want to capture DNS of)
    
    2) Send an update for the domains in this order:
     MyOne.COM
     MyTwo.COM
     TakeOver.COM <--the one you want to alter.
     MyThree.COM
    
    3) I figured that if you send the updates at a low traffic time (5AM?)
    and send them immediately after one another...
    
    4) You will get ACK requests for the ones that belong to you. The change
    request for TakeOver.COM didn't come to you, but I figured that you
    could look at the # in the header of your three and interpolate the
    needed value for the ACK to change TakeOver.COM
    
    But if the number doesn't really matter, then I guess I was thinking too
    hard...
    
    I thought this up a few years ago, but never had the time to give it a
    try.
    
    -Rozz
    
    > -----Original Message-----
    > From: Jonah Benton [mailto:Jonahat_private]
    > Sent: Thursday, January 13, 2000 3:50 PM
    > To: Adrian Goins; 'rosnerat_private'
    > Subject: FW: Anyone can take over virtually any domain on the net...
    >
    >
    >
    > Either of you hear about this? I thought there were tracking
    > numbers in that
    > email dialogue...
    >
    > -----Original Message-----
    > From: Thomas Reinke [mailto:reinke@E-SOFTINC.COM]
    > Sent: Wednesday, January 12, 2000 12:27 AM
    > To: BUGTRAQat_private
    > Subject: Anyone can take over virtually any domain on the net...
    >
    >
    > Wired recently ran an article on the fact that someone
    > recently hijacked a number of domains in the Network
    > Solutions database using email spoofing.
    >
    > At first I thought this had to be a joke. After thinking
    > about it, I realized that its no joke at all, and in
    > fact quite easy to do.
    >
    > Step 1: Send a spoofed email to Network solutions requesting
    >         a DNS change to your own DNS server.
    >
    > Step 2: Wait for a short while (the amount of time it normally
    >         takes Network Solutions to send out a confirmation
    >         email request)
    >
    > Step 3: Send a second spoofed email confirming the request.
    >
    > Step 4: Have your DNS server serve the new web server address
    >         from a new webserver with your own content.
    >
    > Network Solutions rep quoted in the wired article:
    >
    >      "O'Shaughnessy pointed out that Network
    >       Solutions offers more secure services.
    >       Most accounts will not need the extra
    >       security he said, but in the age of
    >       e-commerce and more vital Web services,
    >       the onus is on the registrant to see that
    >       his domain is secure."
    >
    > Doesn't take too much rocket science to point out that other
    > than the obvious flaws in insecure email, the fact that
    > confirmations to make domain changes do not carry any
    > sort of tracking number make it possible for spoofed email
    > to confirm illegitimate requests.  I think it might be
    > appropriate for Network Solutions to add at least THAT
    > much reliability into their confirmation scheme so that
    > that kind of change couldn't occur in the future...
    >
    > BTW, Network Solution's instructions on changing the
    > scheme to a userid and password based system doesn't
    > work very well. We've attempted on several occasions
    > to do this with no luck...thereby forcing on us the guardian
    > scheme :(
    >
    > Cheers, Thomas
    > --
    > ------------------------------------------------------------
    > Thomas Reinke                            Tel: (905) 331-2260
    > Director of Technology                   Fax: (905) 331-2504
    > E-Soft Inc.                         http://www.e-softinc.com
    >
    



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