slow scans to random IPs on port 53 (and other ports0

From: Russell Fulton (r.fultonat_private)
Date: Sun Apr 29 2001 - 17:52:08 PDT

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    Over the last week I have detected an increasing number of machines
    probing random addressess in our address space on udp port 53.
    
    Here are some counts from this months logs:
    
    12th       1
    15th       8
    20th      19
    25th      42
    29th      85
    
    A most of these machines are sending upd named version probes.
    Here is a sample from the snort logs for one machine today:
    
    Apr 30 09:00:00 takahe snort[12098]: IDS278 - SCAN -named Version probe: 212.71.160.163:61807 -> 130.216.144.143:53
    Apr 30 09:20:10 takahe snort[12098]: IDS278 - SCAN -named Version probe: 212.71.160.163:61213 -> 130.216.151.175:53
    Apr 30 09:43:34 takahe snort[12098]: IDS278 - SCAN -named Version probe: 212.71.160.163:61017 -> 130.216.147.2:53
    Apr 30 10:03:17 takahe snort[12098]: IDS278 - SCAN -named Version probe: 212.71.160.163:64813 -> 130.216.104.217:53
    Apr 30 10:48:45 takahe snort[12098]: IDS278 - SCAN -named Version probe: 212.71.160.163:62319 -> 130.216.171.88:53
    
    These rates are similiar to what we see for windows trojans probing
    for open shares.
    
    I have tried telnetting to a about a dozen of these addresses and most
    give 'connection refused' -- odd, if they are UNIX systems.  The one or
    two that did repsond were running Linux.
    
    I am now seeing these slow random probes for (proto_port-number of sources)
    udp_137-153, udp_53-85, tcp_111-6, tcp_515-6 and (tcp_139, 12345 and
    27374 - 8). Counts from yesterday's logs.
    
    This method of scanning is becoming increasingly popular because the
    perceived scan rate is well below most peoples detection thresholds.
    In our /16 address space we typically see about 10-30 packets per day
    from these machines (less if the machine is turned off regularly).
    Most of the udp scans only probe within their own /8 address space if
    the distribution of source addresses are anything to go by. I.e most
    of the udp-137 source addresses are in the same /8 as us.
    
    
    Russell Fulton, Computer and Network Security Officer
    The University of Auckland,  New Zealand
    



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