Re: Monumentous task of making a list of all DDoS Zombies.

2004-02-10 Thread Suresh Ramasubramanian
Steve Birnbaum wrote:

So you want a major ISP to simply automatically disable accounts of its
users based only on automated detection of an IP address and timestamp in
something that APPEARS to be a complaint to an automated script?
Hi

You have two things confused from my previous mail.

1. Set up router / IDS acls that look for outbound / inbound traffic 
that is characteristic of worms (or whatever), and have the accounts 
deactivated based on that.

2. Set up your NOC to use a sensible ticket system optimized for 
incident handling (RTIR + RT3, and Abacus seem to be the only contenders 
so far according to a recent discussion I had with admins on another 
list).

A lot of the NOCs use ticketing systems that are either designed for 
customer service apps (like Kana), or sometimes - I kid you not - use 
IMAP accounts, excel (or at least csv) worksheets and a maze of shell 
and perl hacks that are somewhat, but not quite like, a ticketing system.

This system I described must have wired into it easy ways to grab user 
information from radius etc, append IPs to block into a text file that 
can be grabbed by a cronjob and synced into router ACLs  after sanity 
checking etc.

And of course if the NOC guy is smart enough, he knows enough to weed 
out obviously bogus complaints [including the GWF / Goober With Firewall 
ones, as one of my friends once put it - the complaints generated by 
those fancy "software firewall" programs] before deactivating accounts.

There is a reason why there are humans (overworked, unfortunately) handling
abuse complaints.  Make it easy, sure...but make it easy for the human to be
Yes.  I'm one such person as it happens.  And all I ask it that it be 
made easy.

	srs


RE: Monumentous task of making a list of all DDoS Zombies.

2004-02-10 Thread Steve Birnbaum

 
> Your staff will still get a ton of complaints. If these can 
> be parsed by a script that looks for virus / trojan strings in the 
> complaint,extracts the IP (or has your NOC dude just click the IP in his 
> ticketing system, like in RT + IRTT) and the account just goes away - then
fine.

So you want a major ISP to simply automatically disable accounts of its
users based only on automated detection of an IP address and timestamp in
something that APPEARS to be a complaint to an automated script?

Do you want to start a pool to see how long it will take before the
dictionary complaints start rolling in once such a system becomes publicly
known?

There is a reason why there are humans (overworked, unfortunately) handling
abuse complaints.  Make it easy, sure...but make it easy for the human to be
able to properly inspect the complaint to see if it's legitimate BEFORE
doing anything.

But to the original issue of accountability.  If an ISP can't write a simple
tool to take an IP address & timestamp and spit out a username from radius
logs, how do you expect them to implement a hash-based rdns tagging system?

Steve


Steve Birnbaum  SkyVision Global Networks
Phone: +44 20 83871750  Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Note that it is never the fall that kills, it's the landing.
 




Re: Monumentous task of making a list of all DDoS Zombies.

2004-02-09 Thread Scott A Crosby

On Sun, 8 Feb 2004 18:12:46 +0100, Iljitsch van Beijnum <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:

> But how are you going to infect a million boxes if you can
> only scan one address per second?

With a random scanning worm, the expected time could be as low as
about a day.

Assuming the random scanning model from the paper[1], I get:
0 time: 1 infected host.
   11 hours to infect 1000 hosts.
   25 hours to infect 800k hosts
   31 hours to infect 996k hosts.

This model assumes one scan per second per infected host. It is
because if a million boxes are vulnerable, then one in 4096 IP
addresses should be vulnerable. A random scan would find one such
every 4096 seconds, implying a doubling time of about 70 minutes.

Scott

[1] http://www.icir.org/vern/papers/cdc-usenix-sec02/



Re: Monumentous task of making a list of all DDoS Zombies.

2004-02-08 Thread Suresh Ramasubramanian
Guðbjörn Hreinsson wrote:

ip ranges is sending worms and automatically disables those users... I see
no gain from adding anything in DNS, like reverse records.
well, rDNS is just one way.  If you have some relatively automated (and 
automatic, easy to trigger from your mailserver logs, your router / ids 
logs etc) system to disable users, without having your NOC guys manually 
paste stuff into a form / fire up your db and execute queries manually, 
then cool.

We perform this today, the problem is, what are the signs for "big problem"
trojans and zombies? If there was a tool out there that could perform
scanning
Well, sticking an IDS on outbound traffic might not scale - especially 
across a large dialup pool.  But there are other things to do, such as 
filtering the commonly used methods of worm propogation (windows shares, 
port 25 outbound from your dynamic IPs ..)

purchase such a tool. Other than scanning for the open ports, I think these
zombies are regular open proxies... but that may (will?) change in the
They are proxies on a random high port - but sometimes they do phone 
home to a particular source etc.  Lots of people perform trojan 
analysis, and I assume a regular update of these, fed into a cut down 
version of an IDS, might help.

	srs


Re: Monumentous task of making a list of all DDoS Zombies.

2004-02-08 Thread Suresh Ramasubramanian
Sean Donelan wrote:
But I still don't understand why an ISP unwilling to spend the money
to trace uses with RADIUS or other existing methods; is going to want
to spend money on interfacing their systems with Dynamic DNS servers and
All I'm saying, Sean, is that there should be a quick way (or even an 
automated way) for the NOC to track down and deactivate trojaned hosts / 
zombies etc on their network.

Put the MAC address in, or a hashed version of the guy's userid in, or 
anything else you want [cf: EB Dreger's post].

Or query RADIUS or other methods if you like.  As long as it can be 
automated, and there's a way to immediately parse out the guy's userid 
and deactivate it ... I don't particularly care.  I just suggested one 
method.  Sure, there are several others.

Digital rightes management, password guessing, IRC bans, mail blocks, etc
could work much more effectively if ISPs provided a unique identifier for
subscribers.  If software and hardware vendors included a hard-coded
I never said that unique identifier had to be intelligible to anybody 
other than the ISP.  The 1984-esque scenario is interesting, but not 
really what I was suggesting.

As you point out, there are a lot of them.  But the goal should be to
NOT have the ISP's staffers handle individual complaints.  Any "solution"
Your staff will still get a ton of complaints. If these can be parsed by 
a script that looks for virus / trojan strings in the complaint,extracts 
the IP (or has your NOC dude just click the IP in his ticketing system, 
like in RT + IRTT) and the account just goes away - then fine.

As long as the user is still active and still able to login to your 
network, you have a ddos zombie in there.

I assume you are aware that one of the fastest growing trojan segments
includes trojans which can not be detected by port scanners.
Yes. There are stealth trojans. But just looking for sudden peaks of 
traffic, or other wormsign, might help in such a case.

You are correct that prevention is better than the cure.  Unfortunately
you've misidentified the point of prevention.  The software vendor is
in the best position to prevent systems being compromised.  A change at
You know, I would love it if I had a userbase that was all mac / *nix. 
Or at least a userbase running windows that would take the time and 
trouble to at least patch their systems and update their AV definitions 
once in a while, and which would use something safer than IE + Outlook 
to surf the web & read their email, like say Firebird + Thunderbird.

If you only have such model users on your network, let me know if you 
are hiring and I'll immediately send you my CV :)  But for want of that ...
The number of spoofed packets received has very little to do with the
number of sources of spoofed packets.  But again, it points out the
lack of hard data.  Yesterday, a red car cut me off, so obviously the
problem is red cars and we should prohibit all red cars.
Analogies do suck, don't they?  Try that one with "street illegal souped 
up muscle car" instead of "red car" and see if it holds.  All I said was 
that the guy running the mirror told me that he got a non trivial number 
of DoS attempts from sources that used spoofed backets.  And as far as I 
know, there is no reason _not_ to filter spoofed source packets.

1. Easy identifying of hosts, at least to the ISP (to avoid privacy
concerns)
By whom?  Should anyone be able to identify any host any time, or is it
only necessary for inter-connected providers to identify the next provider
Jesus.  The ISP who is providing that IP should have some way to 
immediately / automatically identify its users who have trojaned PCs and 
lock them out, something tied to their ticketing system, or to an IDS 
even, if they are into automated detection of trojans.

3. Proactive network sweeps
Sweeps for what?
open proxies, open relays, those trojans that can be detected by 
portscans  but I guess that question was rhetorical.

Of course you meant to say contact the person who sold you your computer
for help fixing your computer.  The police write tickets, they don't
fix cars.
You got it.  But then you need to call your ISP to get your IP 
un-vlaned, or your account reactivated, surely?

5. Cooperation with law enforcement if necessary, to track down and
punish the DDoSer.
Of course, the original issue was PTR records for spam, not DDOS.  But
PTR records for just about everything.  The topic seems to have drifted 
this way (which is good, at least in the nanog context where discussions 
about spam are apparently to be streng verboten).

Which ISPs are not cooperating with law enforcement?

In the US, if you receive harrassing or threatening phone calls, you have
to file a police report.  The telephone company only provides the
information about the source of the calls to the police for followup.
Look, I do know the drill about handling subpoenas.  But that's a bit 
different from an ISP going after and suing a kiddie who targets th

Re: Monumentous task of making a list of all DDoS Zombies.

2004-02-08 Thread Suresh Ramasubramanian
Iljitsch van Beijnum wrote:
traffic. But how are you going to infect a million boxes if you can only 
scan one address per second?
Maybe just infect a million windows boxes on your network with a trojan, 
and then have the trojan phone home (say to an irc channel or a central 
controlling server) for instructions?

	srs


Re: Monumentous task of making a list of all DDoS Zombies.

2004-02-08 Thread E.B. Dreger

SD> Date: Sun, 8 Feb 2004 17:43:34 -0500 (EST)
SD> From: Sean Donelan


SD> Again, why does an ISP need to spend the money and as you
SD> point out the extra hassle, to do this?  ISPs already have
SD> all the information they need to trace a subscriber from the
SD> IP address and timestamp.

I'm not sure they need to for the MAC address example.  I was
pointing out that information contained in reverse DNS could be
meaningful, but only to those who should know.

Perhaps a better example would be to s/MAC address/user id/ and
repeat the example.  Then, instead of digging through logs, one
could quickly decrypt the user ID.


SD> We made this mistake once already by having /etc/passwd files
SD> world-readable (encryption would protect the passwords).

Totally wrong analogy.  /etc/passwd was a one-way hash (useless
for this situation)...


SD> Don't repeat the mistake.  If you suspect a particular

...using crypt().  Note that I never suggested use of weak
crypto.


SD> computer, know the time, how long would it take to
SD> brute-force the remaining six characters?

I can think of some frequently-encrypted data that begins with
strings like "HTTP/1.1 200 OK".  So which is a better starting
point for key recovery?


Eddy
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A division of Brotsman & Dreger, Inc. - http://www.brotsman.com/
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Re: Monumentous task of making a list of all DDoS Zombies.

2004-02-08 Thread Sean Donelan

On Sun, 8 Feb 2004, E.B. Dreger wrote:
> SD> Instead of Doubleclick tracking users with Cookies, they
> SD> would be able to track the unique computers from the MAC
> SD> address in the reverse DNS record over time.
>
> A MAC address is six octets.  Append time past Epoch when IP was
> assigned; that's another four octets.  Append six random octets.
> Encrypt.  Make hostname-friendly using %x equivalent.
>
> One now has 32 characters that contain the MAC address and time
> the DHCP lease (or whatever) began, yet are meaningless to those
> who lack the key.  Consider periodically changing the six random
> octets to protect users with long DHCP leases.
>
> It's extra hassle, but one can clearly have tracking _and_
> protect user privacy.

Again, why does an ISP need to spend the money and as you point out
the extra hassle, to do this?  ISPs already have all the information they
need to trace a subscriber from the IP address and timestamp.

Why does the ISP need to install Dynamic DNS servers, links between their
RADIUS servers and the DDNS, and the databases to keep track of the which
keys were used at which time.  How long should ISPs be expected to
maintain the keys to decode the DNS cookies.  If someone wanted to know
which subscriber was using an IP address in 1994, should that be
possible?  How long should the key length be to prevent people from
cracking it years or decades later? Should ISPs provide the government
copies of their keys so national security can keep track of the
information. The privacy advantage of not using "DNS Cookies" is RADIUS
logs only last as long as the ISP keeps them and there is nothing to
crack.

We made this mistake once already by having /etc/passwd files
world-readable (encryption would protect the passwords).  Don't repeat
the mistake.  If you suspect a particular computer, know the time, how
long would it take to brute-force the remaining six characters?

Technology is cool, but is this solving a problem?


Re: Monumentous task of making a list of all DDoS Zombies.

2004-02-08 Thread Sean Donelan

On Sun, 8 Feb 2004, Suresh Ramasubramanian wrote:
> > In practice MAC address tracking only works for a few very specific ISP
> > architectures, such as when the ISP supplies the hardware used to connect
> > to the network.
>
> I'm aware of these - but surely there's something about the user which
> you can stick into rDNS (hashed / encrypted if you like) that'll
> identify the user?

But I still don't understand why an ISP unwilling to spend the money
to trace uses with RADIUS or other existing methods; is going to want
to spend money on interfacing their systems with Dynamic DNS servers and
new systems to generate DNS cookies.  It increases their cost, and
doesn't provide any additional information which they have in their
existing systems.

On the other hand, if we don't care too much for the privacy implications
it would benefit 3rd parties wanting to keep track of individual
computers.  It would help ISPs, because 3rd parties could take more
effective action on their own to ignore traffic from particular computers.

Digital rightes management, password guessing, IRC bans, mail blocks, etc
could work much more effectively if ISPs provided a unique identifier for
subscribers.  If software and hardware vendors included a hard-coded
unique identifier in every computer, it would be even more effective.
Intel has proposed this in the past.  Microsoft has a GUID concept for
its software.

But is the world really ready for this level of identification and
tracking?

> The problem with trojans etc is that there so damn many of them, so the
> less time spent actually tracking down the user who was on IP X at time
> Y, the better it is for the ISP's staffers who handle complaints about
> these.

As you point out, there are a lot of them.  But the goal should be to
NOT have the ISP's staffers handle individual complaints.  Any "solution"
which requires staff to assess and respond individually is not an
improvement.

That's why I proposed the ICMP Go Away message.


> Of course, prevention is better than cure, so another recourse the ISP
> has is to be proactive - setting up a scanner to sweep the host that
> comes up on an IP the moment the dhcp server assigns it.  If not a full
> blown portscan or anything, then at least a quick once-over that looks
> for signs of the current "big problem" trojans / zombies.

I assume you are aware that one of the fastest growing trojan segments
includes trojans which can not be detected by port scanners.

You are correct that prevention is better than the cure.  Unfortunately
you've misidentified the point of prevention.  The software vendor is
in the best position to prevent systems being compromised.  A change at
Microsoft can prevent 60-70 million computers a year from being
vulnerable.  As an ISP, even AOL can't fix that many computers.


> I have heard from someone who hosts one of the mirrors for a site that
> is a DDoS magnet. I recall his saying that a non trivial number of
> attacks coming at this mirror were from spoofed source addresses.

The number of spoofed packets received has very little to do with the
number of sources of spoofed packets.  But again, it points out the
lack of hard data.  Yesterday, a red car cut me off, so obviously the
problem is red cars and we should prohibit all red cars.

Is there any difference in the number of attacks between networks which
have deployed BCP38 and networks which haven't?  Or perhaps the problem
is with the computers connected to the networks, not the networks.


> No, I don't claim that BCP38 is a magic bullet either.  But I do put it
> to you that the way to at least mitigate this menace include a
> combination of several steps -
>
> 1. Easy identifying of hosts, at least to the ISP (to avoid privacy
> concerns)

By whom?  Should anyone be able to identify any host any time, or is it
only necessary for inter-connected providers to identify the next provider
in the chain?  Should end-users be complaining to their own provider (i.e.
the ISP they are paying money) or calling 3rd party ISPs which have no
method to identify who is making the complaint?


> 2. Sensible filtering practices

Filter for what?  What is considered sensible?


> 3. Proactive network sweeps

Sweeps for what?


> 4. Quick and immediate isolation of infected hosts - nullroute them, or
> maybe VLAN them into their own corner of the 'net, where the only thing
> they can access over http is an ISP support page saying "please un-root
> your computer, or contact us at 1-800-[foo] for help and more details"

Of course you meant to say contact the person who sold you your computer
for help fixing your computer.  The police write tickets, they don't
fix cars.

> 5. Cooperation with law enforcement if necessary, to track down and
> punish the DDoSer.

Of course, the original issue was PTR records for spam, not DDOS.  But
this isn't the first time people have changed in the middle of a thread.

Which ISPs are not cooperating with law enforcement?

In the US, i

Re: Monumentous task of making a list of all DDoS Zombies.

2004-02-08 Thread E.B. Dreger

SD> Date: Sun, 8 Feb 2004 02:01:29 -0500 (EST)
SD> From: Sean Donelan


SD> Instead of Doubleclick tracking users with Cookies, they
SD> would be able to track the unique computers from the MAC
SD> address in the reverse DNS record over time.

A MAC address is six octets.  Append time past Epoch when IP was
assigned; that's another four octets.  Append six random octets.
Encrypt.  Make hostname-friendly using %x equivalent.

One now has 32 characters that contain the MAC address and time
the DHCP lease (or whatever) began, yet are meaningless to those
who lack the key.  Consider periodically changing the six random
octets to protect users with long DHCP leases.

It's extra hassle, but one can clearly have tracking _and_
protect user privacy.

That leaves the issue of users changing MAC address to evade
detection.  However, the aforementioned DNS issues have no
bearing on this problem, which is a separate topic.


Eddy
--
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A division of Brotsman & Dreger, Inc. - http://www.brotsman.com/
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Phone: +1 785 865 5885 Lawrence and [inter]national
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Re: Monumentous task of making a list of all DDoS Zombies.

2004-02-08 Thread Guðbjörn Hreinsson

> I'm aware of these - but surely there's something about the user which
> you can stick into rDNS (hashed / encrypted if you like) that'll
> identify the user?
>
> The problem with trojans etc is that there so damn many of them, so the
> less time spent actually tracking down the user who was on IP X at time
> Y, the better it is for the ISP's staffers who handle complaints about
> these.

It's not that hard, I assume we are talking about dial-up, cable and xDSL
users? We already log all major radius events in a database and it's very
easy to look up users in that db, we have a web page for CSR's (customer
service representative's), additionally the mail server detects which of our
ip ranges is sending worms and automatically disables those users... I see
no gain from adding anything in DNS, like reverse records.

> Of course, prevention is better than cure, so another recourse the ISP
> has is to be proactive - setting up a scanner to sweep the host that
> comes up on an IP the moment the dhcp server assigns it.  If not a full
> blown portscan or anything, then at least a quick once-over that looks
> for signs of the current "big problem" trojans / zombies.

We perform this today, the problem is, what are the signs for "big problem"
trojans and zombies? If there was a tool out there that could perform
scanning
of computers AND knew about what to look for (does this malware operate
on fixed ports) AND could be automatically updated for new malware I would
purchase such a tool. Other than scanning for the open ports, I think these
zombies are regular open proxies... but that may (will?) change in the
future.

> 4. Quick and immediate isolation of infected hosts - nullroute them, or
> maybe VLAN them into their own corner of the 'net, where the only thing
> they can access over http is an ISP support page saying "please un-root
> your computer, or contact us at 1-800-[foo] for help and more details"

We simply modify their passwords and log them the off today. There is also
an entry created in the incident tracking system. But, we have it as a
future goal
to let them access some pages, like HouseCall etc.



Rgds,
-GSH



Re: Monumentous task of making a list of all DDoS Zombies.

2004-02-08 Thread Iljitsch van Beijnum
On 8-feb-04, at 10:05, Suresh Ramasubramanian wrote:

Coming up with new types of probes all the time to check for this 
would be a huge amount of work.

Would that be any less work than clearing up the mess left by an 
infestation of DDoS zombies? :)
Apples and oranges. You need to clean up the zombies regardless of 
whether they succeeded in attacking the victim or they were stopped.

I favor an approach where people no longer get to send data at high 
speed without the recipient's approval. Just sending data in the 
blind or any type of scanning could then trigger a severe rate limit 
or raise an alarm.

It is fairly easy to work around rate limits by just scaling 
laterally, and compromising a few million more boxes.  If the next 
virus grabs 4M, or 20M boxes instead of just a measly 2M boxes, you 
can rate limit all you like, bit it really won't help.
Help against what? You're right that if a million boxes send one 125 
byte packet per second to the same place, that's still a gigabit worth 
of traffic, that particular place is going to receive a gigabit worth 
of traffic. But how are you going to infect a million boxes if you can 
only scan one address per second?

And let's not be so blase assume that all DoS attacks are done with a 
million zombies at a time.



Re: Monumentous task of making a list of all DDoS Zombies.

2004-02-08 Thread Suresh Ramasubramanian
Iljitsch van Beijnum wrote:
Coming up with new types of probes all the time to check for this would 
be a huge amount of work.
Would that be any less work than clearing up the mess left by an 
infestation of DDoS zombies? :)

I favor an approach where people no longer get to send data at high 
speed without the recipient's approval. Just sending data in the blind 
or any type of scanning could then trigger a severe rate limit or raise 
an alarm.
It is fairly easy to work around rate limits by just scaling laterally, 
and compromising a few million more boxes.  If the next virus grabs 4M, 
or 20M boxes instead of just a measly 2M boxes, you can rate limit all 
you like, bit it really won't help.

Unfortunately, this type of action must be performed at the source and 
some networks just can't be bothered.
Yup.

	srs


Re: Monumentous task of making a list of all DDoS Zombies.

2004-02-08 Thread Iljitsch van Beijnum
On 8-feb-04, at 8:27, Suresh Ramasubramanian wrote:

Of course, prevention is better than cure, so another recourse the ISP 
has is to be proactive - setting up a scanner to sweep the host that 
comes up on an IP the moment the dhcp server assigns it.  If not a 
full blown portscan or anything, then at least a quick once-over that 
looks for signs of the current "big problem" trojans / zombies.
Coming up with new types of probes all the time to check for this would 
be a huge amount of work.

I favor an approach where people no longer get to send data at high 
speed without the recipient's approval. Just sending data in the blind 
or any type of scanning could then trigger a severe rate limit or raise 
an alarm.

There are several ISPs which implement ingress filtering per
BCP38/RFC2827.  None of them have seen a change in the number of DDOS
attacks.  The people who track this kind of stuff say that most
attacks do not use spoofed addresses.

I have heard from someone who hosts one of the mirrors for a site that 
is a DDoS magnet. I recall his saying that a non trivial number of 
attacks coming at this mirror were from spoofed source addresses.
People need to make sure only packets with legitimate source addresses 
escape from their network. Period.

Unfortunately, this type of action must be performed at the source and 
some networks just can't be bothered.



Re: Monumentous task of making a list of all DDoS Zombies.

2004-02-08 Thread Suresh Ramasubramanian
Sean Donelan wrote:
In practice MAC address tracking only works for a few very specific ISP
architectures, such as when the ISP supplies the hardware used to connect
to the network.
I'm aware of these - but surely there's something about the user which 
you can stick into rDNS (hashed / encrypted if you like) that'll 
identify the user?

The problem with trojans etc is that there so damn many of them, so the 
less time spent actually tracking down the user who was on IP X at time 
Y, the better it is for the ISP's staffers who handle complaints about 
these.

Of course, prevention is better than cure, so another recourse the ISP 
has is to be proactive - setting up a scanner to sweep the host that 
comes up on an IP the moment the dhcp server assigns it.  If not a full 
blown portscan or anything, then at least a quick once-over that looks 
for signs of the current "big problem" trojans / zombies.

There are several ISPs which implement ingress filtering per
BCP38/RFC2827.  None of them have seen a change in the number of DDOS
attacks.  The people who track this kind of stuff say that most
attacks do not use spoofed addresses.
I have heard from someone who hosts one of the mirrors for a site that 
is a DDoS magnet. I recall his saying that a non trivial number of 
attacks coming at this mirror were from spoofed source addresses.

No, I don't claim that BCP38 is a magic bullet either.  But I do put it 
to you that the way to at least mitigate this menace include a 
combination of several steps -

1. Easy identifying of hosts, at least to the ISP (to avoid privacy 
concerns)

2. Sensible filtering practices

3. Proactive network sweeps

4. Quick and immediate isolation of infected hosts - nullroute them, or 
maybe VLAN them into their own corner of the 'net, where the only thing 
they can access over http is an ISP support page saying "please un-root 
your computer, or contact us at 1-800-[foo] for help and more details"

5. Cooperation with law enforcement if necessary, to track down and 
punish the DDoSer.

	srs


Re: Monumentous task of making a list of all DDoS Zombies.

2004-02-08 Thread Sean Donelan

On Sun, 8 Feb 2004, Suresh Ramasubramanian wrote:
> Another thing that helps with easier identification is a practice some
> ISPs have of inserting the MAC address of the host into the reverse DNS
> record, with a short TTL.  When a new host gets that IP, the MAC address
> changes too.  I have seen at least one ISP do this - and it makes it a
> whole lot easier for the ISP to quickly identify the host, rather than
> having to trawl through RADIUS logs or whatever else.

I've made proposals like this in the past, and have investigated some of
the issues.  I don't know if the world is ready to go that far yet.

In practice MAC address tracking only works for a few very specific ISP
architectures, such as when the ISP supplies the hardware used to connect
to the network.

Tracking MAC addresses ends up requiring having to trawl through RADIUS
logs because users don't like having to tell the ISP everytime they change
ethernet cards or computers.  Most end-user home routers now include
options to "clone" any MAC address to get around the MAC address
requirement of a former (bankrupt) cable ISP.

So you need to search which subscriber account was signed on with that
MAC address during the suspect time period. Vendors aren't always that
careful about assigning unique MAC addresses, and complaints aren't
always that careful about reporting the correct MAC addresses.  You
still need the time information to verify the subscriber was actually
online. For dialup users, which don't have ethernet MACs, do you
put the user's home phone number in the reverse DNS records?

How much privacy should users have or expect? One of the most common
requests from law enforcement is how can they get a "unlisted" IP
address.  The same way they get an unlisted credit card number.

Look at the hysteria over browser cookie "tracking" on the web.  The
"anti-Spyware" programs like to list lots of "spy" cookies which
anonymously track visitors to web sites. Instead of Doubleclick tracking
users with Cookies, they would be able to track the unique computers
from the MAC address in the reverse DNS record over time.

Or would this backfire, because then the hackers could find the vulnerable
computers again and again even if the IP address changes.  The hackers
could scan the in-addr.arpa ranges looking for known vulnerable MAC
addresses.  Look, someone with a MAC address assigned to equipment known
to be vulnerable.

The problems are similar if the ISP assigns some other "unique" identifier
to the subscriber and dynamically updates the reverse DNS record.


> Then, there's the little matter of ISPs implementing ingress filtering
> as per BCP38 / RFC 2827.  These DDoS zombies seem to also be used as a
> ready source of spoofed source addresses for attacks.

There are several ISPs which implement ingress filtering per
BCP38/RFC2827.  None of them have seen a change in the number of DDOS
attacks.  The people who track this kind of stuff say that most
attacks do not use spoofed addresses.

Unfortunately, the data is lacking about the effectiveness of any of
these solutions.  In the USA, the FDA requires drug producers to show
new drugs are safe and effective before being sold to the public.  There
is no such requirement for people selling security solutions.

   - Block access from IP addresses without rDNS
Data?

   - Insert MAC address into rDNS (negating previous block)
Data?

   - Implement BCP 38
Data?


Re: Monumentous task of making a list of all DDoS Zombies.

2004-02-07 Thread Suresh Ramasubramanian
Wayne Gustavus (nanog) wrote:

http://cbl.abuseat.org

Interesting approach.  It would be conceivable that if this resource was
Widely used, miscreants could use this service to DDoS there victims without
an army of zombies :-)  I still submit that it is more advisable to address
the root of the problem by finding the true host that generated attack
traffic.  Automating this process of matching dynamic IP to customer acct 
with a timestamp and remediation is the goal.  
Timestamps are, of course, a solution - they definitely help in quickly 
identifying compromised hosts.

Another thing that helps with easier identification is a practice some 
ISPs have of inserting the MAC address of the host into the reverse DNS 
record, with a short TTL.  When a new host gets that IP, the MAC address 
changes too.  I have seen at least one ISP do this - and it makes it a 
whole lot easier for the ISP to quickly identify the host, rather than 
having to trawl through RADIUS logs or whatever else.

Then, there's the little matter of ISPs implementing ingress filtering 
as per BCP38 / RFC 2827.  These DDoS zombies seem to also be used as a 
ready source of spoofed source addresses for attacks.

	srs


RE: Monumentous task of making a list of all DDoS Zombies.

2004-02-07 Thread Wayne Gustavus (nanog)

> -Original Message-
> From: Suresh Ramasubramanian [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] 
> Sent: Saturday, February 07, 2004 9:58 PM
> To: Wayne Gustavus (nanog)
> Cc: 'Drew Weaver'; [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: Re: Monumentous task of making a list of all DDoS Zombies.
> 

> 
> 1. It is arguable whether dynamic IPs are to be treated as legitimate 
> mailhosts.  Your colleagues in VOL mailops might tell you something 
> similar too.

No argument there.  However, the thread was originally addressing a list of
DDoS Zombies, not illegitimate SMTP mailhosts.  Arguably zombies used to
launch 
DDoS attacks are treated differently than such hosts.  We address both
types.

> 
> 2. An expiring list, where entries inserted are quickly expired, and 
> stats used to add to other lists (such as MAPS DUL / SORBS DUHL) is a 
> good idea, and moreover, it's already been done. 
http://cbl.abuseat.org

Interesting approach.  It would be conceivable that if this resource was
Widely used, miscreants could use this service to DDoS there victims without
an army of zombies :-)  I still submit that it is more advisable to address
the root of the problem by finding the true host that generated attack
traffic.  Automating this process of matching dynamic IP to customer acct 
with a timestamp and remediation is the goal.  



__ 
Wayne Gustavus, CCIE #7426
Operations Engineering
Verizon Internet Services   
___ 



Re: Monumentous task of making a list of all DDoS Zombies.

2004-02-07 Thread Suresh Ramasubramanian
Wayne Gustavus (nanog) wrote:
This would essentially be impossible and not a good idea.  Large volumes 
of hosts/zombies involved in such attacks originate from residential 
cable/dsl subscribers.  This user base primarily uses dynamically 
assigned IP space.  Hence, the IP of tonight's attacker could be the IP 
of tomorrow's legitimate user.
1. It is arguable whether dynamic IPs are to be treated as legitimate 
mailhosts.  Your colleagues in VOL mailops might tell you something 
similar too.

2. An expiring list, where entries inserted are quickly expired, and 
stats used to add to other lists (such as MAPS DUL / SORBS DUHL) is a 
good idea, and moreover, it's already been done. http://cbl.abuseat.org

	srs


Re: Monumentous task of making a list of all DDoS Zombies.

2004-02-07 Thread Marshall Eubanks

It need be neither momentous nor  monumental -

Just say it's 0.0.0.0 / 0 with some occasional exceptions.

Regards
Marshall Eubanks

On Sat, 7 Feb 2004 11:56:28 -0500
 "Wayne Gustavus (nanog)" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> This would essentially be impossible and not a good idea.  Large volumes of
> hosts/zombies involved in such attacks originate from residential cable/dsl
> subscribers.  This user base primarily uses dynamically assigned IP space.
> Hence, the IP of tonight's attacker could be the IP of tomorrow's legitimate
> user. 
>  
> This is the same reason that it is imperative that any complaints sent to
> ISPs providing such services MUST have a time stamp (with timezone) along
> with other information relative to the attack/abuse.  This is the only way
> the ISPs can relate the IP with the actual enduser in order to contact them
> for remediation.
>  
>  
>  
>  
> 
> ___
> Wayne Gustavus, CCIE #7426   
> Operations Engineering   
> Verizon Internet Services  
> ___ 
> 
> -Original Message-
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Drew
> Weaver
> Sent: Friday, February 06, 2004 4:15 PM
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: Monumentous task of making a list of all DDoS Zombies.
> 
> 
> 
> Is there a list maintained anywhere of all hosts that have been
> identified as a DDoS zombie? Or attack box? We got hit with an attack from
> more than 60 IPs last night and I'd like to add them to any list that anyone
> has started.
> 
>  
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> -Drew
> 
>  
> 



RE: Monumentous task of making a list of all DDoS Zombies.

2004-02-07 Thread Wayne Gustavus (nanog)
Title: Message



This would essentially be impossible and not a good idea.  Large 
volumes of hosts/zombies involved in such attacks originate from residential 
cable/dsl subscribers.  This user base primarily uses dynamically 
assigned IP space.  Hence, the IP of tonight's attacker could be the IP of 
tomorrow's legitimate user. 
 
This is the same reason that it is imperative that any complaints sent to 
ISPs providing such services MUST have a time stamp (with timezone) along with 
other information relative to the attack/abuse.  This is the only way the 
ISPs can relate the IP with the actual enduser in order to contact them for 
remediation.
 
 
 
 
___Wayne 
Gustavus, CCIE 
#7426   Operations 
Engineering   Verizon 
Internet 
Services  ___ 


  
  -Original Message-From: 
  [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Drew 
  WeaverSent: Friday, February 06, 2004 4:15 PMTo: 
  [EMAIL PROTECTED]Subject: Monumentous task of making a list of all 
  DDoS Zombies.
  
      
  Is there a list maintained anywhere of all hosts that have been identified as 
  a DDoS zombie? Or attack box? We got hit with an attack from more than 60 IPs 
  last night and I'd like to add them to any list that anyone has 
  started.
   
  Thanks,
  -Drew
   


Re: Monumentous task of making a list of all DDoS Zombies.

2004-02-06 Thread Rubens Kuhl Jr.



 
You probably want to make a list of vulnerable 
hosts that fall to exploits like this:http://server-ip-here/scripts/../../winnt/system32/ping.exe
 
Most DDoS zombies will use spoofed IP packets 
to attack its victim, so filtering the source will not relief your 
pain.
 
 
Rubens
 

  - Original Message - 
  From: 
  Drew 
  Weaver 
  To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 
  Sent: Friday, February 06, 2004 7:15 
  PM
  Subject: Monumentous task of making a 
  list of all DDoS Zombies.
  
  
      
  Is there a list maintained anywhere of all hosts that have been identified as 
  a DDoS zombie? Or attack box? We got hit with an attack from more than 60 IPs 
  last night and I'd like to add them to any list that anyone has 
  started.
   
  Thanks,
  -Drew
   


Monumentous task of making a list of all DDoS Zombies.

2004-02-06 Thread Drew Weaver








    Is there a list maintained anywhere of all hosts
that have been identified as a DDoS zombie? Or attack box? We got hit with an attack
from more than 60 IPs last night and I'd like to add them to any list that
anyone has started.

 

Thanks,

-Drew