Unicode Attack

From: Jeremy Junginger (jjungingerat_private)
Date: Wed Nov 13 2002 - 06:51:02 PST

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    It's time again to ask the group for some assistance with interpretation
    of web logs and snort alerts.  There was some funny activity on the web
    farm.  I noticed a couple "ATTACK RESPONSES-http dir listing" attacks on
    some of our web servers, queueing me in to the fact that the servers in
    question were not patched against a Unicode-type vulnerability.  I found
    the offending IP, and tracked it back to a broadband home connection. I
    think with reasonable certainty that the attack was not spoofed (because
    of the nature of TCP and the fact that he received a response from the
    web server); however, I cannot rule out the possibility of the host
    being compromised.  Knowing this, I reported it to our ISP and blocked
    access immediately, and began to analyze the logs more closely.  The web
    logs are continuous, so I am assuming that they are intact, though they
    may be suspect.  There are no lapses  in time, and the logs appear to be
    fairly contiguous.  I also noticed that the attack was scripted, as
    there were many WEB-IIS SAM RETRIEVAL attempts interspersed with the
    Unicode strings, all happening in less than 10 seconds.  The log entries
    of the first server are below.  
    
    Web log entries:
    
    2002-11-12 13:00:37 210.201.100.253 - x.x.x.17 80 GET
    /scripts/..%5c../..%5c../..%5cwinnt/system32/cmd.exe /c+dir 200 1849 321
    31 HTTP/1.1 63.241.137.233
    Mozilla/4.0+(compatible;+MSIE+5.01;+Windows+NT+5.0) - -
    
    2002-11-12 13:00:37 210.201.100.253 - x.x.x.17 80 GET
    /scripts/..%5c../..%5c../..%5cwinnt/system32/cmd.exe /c+dir 200 1849 321
    31 HTTP/1.1 63.241.137.233
    Mozilla/4.0+(compatible;+MSIE+5.01;+Windows+NT+5.0) - -
    
    This is an IIS 5.0/Win2k Server with SP2 and Latest Hotfixes per
    HFNETCHECK, which I thought would preclude this server from being
    vulnerable to a Unicode-type attack.  The only thing that has not been
    done is running URLSCAN and IISLOCKDOWN.  Obviously, these will be my
    steps for patching the servers, but I would like to ask for some
    assistance with replicating the attack.  
    
    INTERESTING NOTE:  The web logs indicate that the URL Requested was
    (correct me if I'm wrong) 
    http://x.x.x.17/scripts/..%5c..%5c..%5cwinnt/system32.cmd.exe?/c+dir
    (possibly with a c:\ at the end).  
    
    When running this URL against the server, it produces a 404 error on the
    server rather than listing the drive contents.  The snort logs
    (Snort/MySQL/PHP/ACID/Apache) indicate that the URL was
    http://x.x.x.17/scripts/..%5c..%5c..%5cwinnt/system32.cmd.exe?/c+dir .  
    
    I guess my question is three-fold:
    
    1) Does the IIS server "decode" the string before logging it to the web
    logs?
    2) Does the Snort IDS "decode" the string before logging it to MySQL?
    3) Since there are few (if any) thorough Unicode scanners, is it
    possible to write a perl script that could check for all possible
    Unicode variants on a given web server to test the effectiveness of the
    URLSCAN and IISLOCKDOWN utilities (pre-change/post-change pen-test)?  I
    have some "shell" programs like uni.pl, but am a little confused about
    how to generate all of the possible combinations.
    
    If you guys can provide any assistance with this, it would be great.  If
    not, thanks for taking the time to read the post.  Have a good one!
    
    -Jeremy
    
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