Michael,

On Mon, 25 Nov 2002 10:17:49 PST Michael Bacon wrote:

> I'm using port sentry on my LRP box.  The otherday it blocked someone
> attempting to access port 1080 (not used), then port 25(redirect to our mail
> server).  He came back the next day and tried port 25 again, but he was
> still blocked by the firewall rules.

Sounds like it might be a spammer looking for open relays.  The
socks (port 1080) request was probably an attempt to find a
mis-configured socks proxy that allows public access and is
allowed to relay mail through mail servers on the same network.

Other types of mis-configured proxies can be used too, and it's
common to see network sweeps for ports 80, 1080, 8000, 8080 and
25 all from the same host.  Enough digging on the security focus
or other security or incidents lists should turn up more
information about the techniques used and may even help you find
out which scanning tool was used in this incident.

All that said, if you aren't running mis-configured proxies,
your mail server isn't an open relay, and your firewall is
configured properly, you shouldn't have anything to worry
about.  If in doubt (and you have lots of spare time :), you
could always scan your mail server logs for abnormalities.


> I thought I read somewhere there is a way to capture via tcpdump some of the
> packet information and write it to a file or syslog when a packet is
> dropped.  Is this possible?  Can someone point me in a direction for
> research?
>
> I'm feeling uneasy that I don't know what this person was/is attempting.

I don't know how to use tcpdump in the way you describe, but
snort is typically used for capturing suspicious packets.  If
you are really curious and have the extra hardware, it might
be easier to setup a snort box on a hub outside your firewall.

If you do setup snort outside the firewall, it would be a good
idea to run snort on an interface without an address or take
other measures to make it difficult to attack.

--Brad



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