Norton Personal Firewall 2002 vulnerable to SYN/FIN scan

From: Alfonso Fiore (afiore@secure-edge.com)
Date: Tue Apr 16 2002 - 11:31:09 PDT

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    Hi all, 
    
    I looked briefly in bugtraq archives and I didn't find any reference to this 
    issue. Please accept my apologies, if it's a known problem. 
    
    Norton Personal Firewall 2002 on Windows 2000 is vulnerable to SYN/FIN scan 
    (SYN/FIN/URG, SYN/FIN/PUSH, SYN/FIN/URG/PUSH are not detected as well) also 
    if you activate "detect portscan". 
    
    The windows machine answers the same way with or without NPF.
    open TCP port answer (hping output):
    len=46 ip=a.b.c.d sport=135 flags=SA DF seq=5 ttl=128 id=112 win=16616 
    rtt=0.8 ms
    close TCP port answer (hping output):
    len=46 ip=a.b.c.d sport=136 flags=RA seq=6 ttl=128 id=113 win=0 rtt=0.6 ms 
    
    This way, you can check which ports are listening and you don't get 
    blacklisted. When NPF detects a port scan, it filters all packets from the 
    source IP for the next 30 mins. By the way, I tried to understand this 
    feature: after some tests, I got the idea that NPF stops ONLY SYN packets 
    FROM the blacklisted IP. This means that you can STILL perform a SYN/FIN 
    scan while blacklisted and also that you can go on with an established 
    connection from a blacklisted IP. You just can't start a new connection FROM 
    the blacklisted machine (but you can start it from the "protected" PC). I 
    guess this way to implement a blacklist is mainly for performances. Any 
    comment? 
    
    Moreover, since you can't change the 30 mins default blacklist time, this 
    can help a lot in fingerprinting Norton Personal Firewall making your IP 
    blacklisted and then trying to send again SYN packets on an open port after 
    30 mins. 
    
    In my probe test, I also tried to check the claim "block fragmented IP 
    Packets" in advanced options, attacking the windows box with the old jolt2 
    (MS00-029 May 2000). Of course, the windows 2000 has NO patch or SP which 
    would prevent the attack to success. You might say a computer should always 
    be uptodate with patches, but this was a proof-of-concept of a future 
    undiscovered fragmented IP bug againts a claim of being able to block 
    fragments.
    NPF is NOT able to protect my Windows 2000 against jolt2. 
    
    Thanks for reading, 
    
    alfonso 
    
    Vendor URL:
    ===========
    You can visit the vendors webpage here: 
    http://www.symantec.com/sabu/nis/npf/ 
    
    Vendor response:
    ================
    The vendor was contacted on the 5th of April, 2002 using a web form at
    http://service4.symantec.com/discuss/support/feedback2.nsf/product+feedback
    No reply so far. 
    
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