Re: www.google.com reference in directory-traversal attack

From: Chris Ess (azarinat_private)
Date: Mon Jul 14 2003 - 13:56:50 PDT

  • Next message: David Gillett: "RE: www.google.com reference in directory-traversal attack"

    > I've included a link to a tcpdump taken that shows a standard IIS
    > directory-traversal attack. I was looking over the packets and noticed a
    > reference to www.google.com. Could someone take a look, and let me know
    > what this is being used for?
    >
    > http://12.208.102.165/attack3.dump
    > atack3.dump=1.6kb
    
    Okay.  I'm going to make a guess here.
    
    The GET string, excerpted below, indicates that it is using HTTP/1.1:
    GET /scripts/..%255c..%255cwinnt/system32/cmd.exe?/c+copy+c:\winnt\system32\cmd.exe+c:\inetpub\scripts\script.exe HTTP/1.1
    
    (Pretty nice URL by the way.)
    
    In order to make a valid HTTP/1.1 request, you have to specify a host name
    (I think the proper terminology is 'host header') for the request.  I'm
    guessing that whoever devised this tool decided to just throw in
    'www.google.com' as a host header.  Under IIS, if you specify a host name
    that is not configured, it falls back on the first virtual host that is
    configured for the IP.  So by specifying 'www.google.com', they pretty
    much guarantee that they will fall to the first host -- and on a default
    IIS install, this will be the default web site which lives under
    c:\inetpub\wwwroot
    
    So this is my armchair one minute guess-analysis.  Hope it helps somewhat.
    
    Sincerely,
    
    
    Christopher Ess
    System Administrator / CDTT (Certified Duct Tape Technology)
    
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