OpenBSD 3.0 Honeypot Whitepaper 211
Tortured Potato writes "This white paper, by Michael Anuzis, details how he set up an OpenBSD 3.0 honeypot, watched it get cracked and then analyzed it -- all within 28 hours. Fascinating stuff...this is the first OpenBSD honeypot I've heard of."
Its a reminder (Score:1, Flamebait)
Especially if you run windows.
Michael
Firewall, shmirewall (Score:5, Insightful)
Now, how secure is this network? You've got a firewall, so you're secure, right? Just two minor little flaws: the security holes mentioned in the article are in Apache and SSH. Your firewall didn't add any security at all! You're just as exposed as the next guy with no firewall.
Sticking a firewall in front of your network and thinking you're secure can be very dangerous, if it lulls you into thinking that the machines behind the firewall are now secure. Most exploitable holes are not on the thousands of unused ports that a firewall blocks - they're on the ports that the firewall lets through.
I should mention that with a stateful firewall, you can get greater security, since it monitors the actual content of the connection and may be able to detect hack attempts. However, stateful firewalls tend to be more expensive, less transparent (require more maintenance), and if they're commercial, more expensive. And many hacks can't even be detected by a stateful firewall, and there are all sorts of tunneling tricks that can be used to circumvent this kind of security. Ultimately, the only way to be secure is to make sure that every box that can be accessed from the outside is completely secure.
Along those lines, one of my favorite firewall-related quotes came from a sysadmin whose mail server and entire internal 70-station LAN had been infected by NIMDA: "But we have a firewall! How did it get through??"Re:Firewall, shmirewall (Score:3, Informative)
Stateful packet filters only check the first packet, and then only for the source, some flags, and then pass it through. Then it will make sure that following pieces of the conversation are limited to the same source, destination, and ports. What good does this do? Well, instead of just blindly passing ports through, you can say that inbound connections are only allowed if they are responses to outbound requests (net client), and vise versa (net servers). I'm afraid that's just not true. A stateful firewall is really only concered with the protocol, flags that are initally set, and source and dest ports. The contents could be pure random binary data sent to Apache or SSH, the firewall doesn't care.
So, if your firewall is set to allow connections to Apache and SSH, the worm or exploit will still get through. As far as more secure, you could configure your firewall to prevent outbound connections, stopping the spread of worms from your machine to others, preventing the use of your machine to attack others, and preventing outbound connections (e.g. Sub7, outgoing e-mails, et al.)... However, even in that restrictive configuration, you are just as susceptible to an attacker connecting with SSH, or an exploit sending a: rm -rf
So, properly configured, a stateful firewall still can NOT prevent you from being exploited. However, it can prevent your server from being of any use to an attacker (or a worm).
Re:Firewall, shmirewall (Score:1)
You're correct that a firewall which exclusively perform OSI layer-3&4 stateful inspection works like this. I was speaking loosely, since commercial firewalls tend to be less focused than this. Perhaps I should have said "stateful multi-layer inspection firewalls", which is a more accurate description of the hybrid nature of many "stateful" commercial firewalls. These firewalls perform inspection at multiple OSI layers, in many cases right up to layer 7, the application layer. Firewalls like this are quite capable of protecting against the HTTP attacks of Nimda and Code Red.
When I said "monitors the actual content of the connection", I again spoke too loosely: I was talking about the protocol content at the application layer, which is what layer-7 firewalls monitor.
So, properly configured, a stateful firewall still can NOT prevent you from being exploited.
Some of the layer-7 firewalls can prevent certain application exploits. Even something like this SSH hole could potentially be blocked by such a firewall, but it would depend on the specifics of the exploit and on what the firewall was checking for. But everything I said was intended to emphasize that firewalls do not provide a complete security solution, no matter how stateful they are or what network layer they operate at.
Re:Firewall, shmirewall (Score:2)
Besides that, the OpenSSH vulnerability is easy to protect against. You simply have to disable S/Key (ChallengeResponse) auth, or upgrade to the latest version.
Blocking exploits AFTER they have happened is not the job of a firewall (that's the IDS' part). Rather, a firewall should be able to block the attacks, or somehow help to render them useless.
<rant>
I don't see much value in reverse proxies. They are slow, not likely to block most exploits, and vulnerable themselves.
You'd be much better off using a stateful firewall/router with a good ruleset, in combination with running services as a normal user, chroot-ing services, or using software that will keep the software in line (Systrace [deadly.org], imsafe [sourceforge.net], or something similiar).
I happen to recall some commerical software similiar to imtrace that would detect strange behavior in running services, kill the process, ban the IP that caused the behavior temporarily, then restart the service. Their 'hack this server' site was a fairly impressive demonstration. Anyone happen to know the company name or URL?
</rant>
Re:Firewall, shmirewall (Score:2)
I agree that a lot can be done with stateful firewalls. My point was really to dispel the notion that many people have that any old firewall will protect you from attacks like these. Although in the end, it's kinda futile, since just the word "firewall" conjures up visions of shiny magic boxes in people's heads, and overcoming the marketing is tough.
As for Nimda, IIRC it spread through HTTP attacks as well as email, so it was more of a worm than a virus. Regardless, it is related to firewalls in the way implied by the previous paragraph. There are people out there who believe that their firewall protects them from exploits like Nimda. In fact, Nimda is a great case in point, since even if you had a stateful firewall which prevent the Nimda HTTP hack, your workstations could still become infected via email, potentially ultimately infecting your servers, and once again proving that admins shouldn't believe everything the slick salesman told them about the $18,000 Checkpoint Firewall-1 they just bought.
Re:Firewall, shmirewall (Score:2)
I agree with most of what has been posted above. What I was pointing out in my initial post is just how quickly any system that has a routable IP address will most likely be probed. I'm not saying that firewalls are total protection. But I'm not turning off the firewall on my DSL connetion right now either.
In particular, having a windows 9X (no security) or win XP (Default user has admin rights with no password) on a machine without a firewall is likely to be compromised rather quickly.
Michael
Re:Firewall, shmirewall (Score:1, Interesting)
http://www.openlysecure.org/openbsd/how-to/invi
Only accessed from console.
Re:use a real man's OS (Score:1, Offtopic)
Re:use a real man's OS (Score:1)
Hmm, I wonder if they're kicking themselves now.
From the article: (Score:3, Funny)
Oooh, dems fightin' words! (runs into the General Store and closes the curtains, peeking out)
Re:From the article: (Score:1, Troll)
Not sure, but he could be talking about just the *nix environments. If not then we have to go get the sheriff and the undertaker, there's a gonna be a shoot out!
Re:From the article: (Score:2)
I've said it before, and I'll say it again. 10, 15, 20 years ago, the security advisories were all the same, only the names were different. SunOS, Solaris, HP-UX, IRIX. Sendmail, CERN httpd, X.
What is a honeypot? (Score:1)
Re:What is a honeypot? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:What is a honeypot? (Score:2)
A honeypot is also a research tool into cracking trends and techniques.
Re:What is a honeypot? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:What is a honeypot? (Score:5, Funny)
- A.P.
Re:What is a honeypot? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:What is a honeypot? (Score:2)
Re:What is a honeypot? (Score:1)
He didn't wipe out enough info on those images (Score:2, Funny)
Re: (Score:1)
Re:He didn't wipe out enough info on those images (Score:1)
omegakidd [slashdot.org]
White paper ? (Score:3, Funny)
You can do it with a default install in 30 minutes.
Re:White paper ? (Score:1)
You can do it with a default install in 30 minutes.
So you actually can predict that your box will be hacked by two individual hackers in 30 minutes, analyze what they were doing and write a doc about it? You'll need good timing. Please - please read the articles before begging for karma.
Re:White paper ? (Score:1)
If the machines were default installs, they would have fallen. I'm seeing all the usual (for this week) stuff: SSH, apache, NIMBDA/Code.Red, FTP, etc.
Add about 15 minutes for installing a sniffer+hub in parallel instead of the single-host honeypot here, and 45-60 minutes of setup would get you a few hours of fun and amusement.
I think that the nost interesting part of this particular honeypot was the single honeypot system, instead of the victim + sniffer that I've used and almost always seen used.
Re:White paper ? (Score:1)
Yeah, let's not argue about time... Sweep scans are very common - I get mostly ftp-scans.
What I'm intrested is using virtual servers to fake a net of computers - virtual honeynet - net of honeypots. Could be cheaper and faster to setup than with real hardware. I've heard that there are people already doing this using usermodelinux [usermodelinux.org]. With that one could setup a honeypot in minutes...
First OpenBSD honeypot (Score:4, Informative)
Which is not very surprising for an OS that has had "One remote hole in the default install, in nearly 6 years!" [openbsd.org]. An interesting read 'though.
By the way, there is a slashbox [slashdot.org] for OpenBSD Journal [deadly.org], which can be enabled here [slashdot.org]. It featured this story yesterday.
Re:First OpenBSD honeypot (Score:2)
It's worth remembering for some OpenBSD worshipping newbie zealots that every OS is as secure as the admin installing/maintaining the server.
Let me say that I know the seasoned OpenBSD users surely are not prone to that, but that is true for (nearly) any OS, and for all *nixes.
Re:First OpenBSD honeypot (Score:1)
Given two equally paranoid and skilled sysadmins, the one using OpenBSD has a head start over the one using Linux. Linux machines are owned so easily and often, it often occurs to admins, "gee, maybe I should study all the crackers roaming about my boxes."
Info on the 'Hacker' (Score:5, Informative)
E-Mail: omegakidd@tfz.net
E-Mail2: omegakidd@cheguevara.zzn.com
aim: eromlenosam
aim2: shoogy maple
aim3: satan the killer
msn: omegakidd@hotmail.com
yahoo: omegakidd
irc@efnet: omegakidd
OmegaPunx's aka Elmore Mason's Phone Number (Score:2, Informative)
Registrant:
OmegaPunx
5233 Welcome Ave N.
Crystal, Minnesota 55429
US
Registrar: Dotster (http://www.dotster.com)
Domain Name: OMEGAPUNX.ORG
Created on: 03-MAY-02
Expires on: 03-MAY-03
Last Updated on: 03-MAY-02
Administrative, Technical Contact:
Elmore, Mason omegakidd@tfz.net
OmegaPunx
5233 Welcome Ave N.
Crystal, Minnesota 55429
US
(763)531-0637
I tried calling the number, but no one answered (at 9:30AM EST) let me know if
Re:OmegaPunx's aka Elmore Mason's Phone Number (Score:5, Funny)
Photo here... (Score:1)
Re:OmegaPunx's aka Elmore Mason's Phone Number (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Info on the 'Hacker' (Score:1)
mason elmore?
Re:Info on the 'Hacker' (Score:1)
"Hacker 1" who's "Hacker 2"? (Score:2)
Re:"Hacker 1" who's "Hacker 2"? (Score:1)
About Omegapunx
operating system: FreeBSD 4.5
processer: 845Mhz AMD Duron Processor
ram: 576 MB
ide1: 40 GB Hard Drive
ide2: 52x CD-ROM
nic: Linksys 10/100 base NIC
monitor: 17" Hewlett Packard
info: It all started out when me(omegakidd) and Joe(punkman) created a channel on EFnet. Then I decided to get omegapunx.org. That is the end of that.
Re:"Hacker 1" who's "Hacker 2"? (Score:2)
operating system: FreeBSD 4.5
processer: 845Mhz AMD Duron Processor
ram: 576 MB
ide1: 40 GB Hard Drive
ide2: 52x CD-ROM
nic: Linksys 10/100 base NIC
monitor: 17" Hewlett Packard
info: It all started out when me(omegakidd) and my friend created a channel on EFnet. Then I decided to get omegapunx.org. That is the end of that.
Re:"Hacker 1" who's "Hacker 2"? (Score:1)
ph34r omegapunx (Score:5, Funny)
the best entry is certainly May 31st, when this gem appeared:
It seems to me that the Americans are actually the terrorists. I would elaborate right now but I am too lazy to type that much right now.
9:30PM: I had some fun with smoke bombs. I lit like 5 in my back yard and there was this pretty big smoke could going into my front yard. Sense it looked so cool I searched for some more smoke bombs, and all I could find was like 3. But then I lit them in the feild and that was cool. There was this cloud of blue smoke like 4 and a half feet from the ground. It was soo cool.
Re:ph34r omegapunx (Score:1)
A Gay Script Kiddie too? (Score:2)
This guy has a lot going for him. He can crack any kid's computer that tried to beat him up.
Re:A Gay Script Kiddie too? (Score:2)
He can pack a gun, would that earn you more respect?
Its a good thing they didnt post the kids IPs, these kids are just kids and should be left alone. They dont need more gay-bashing or script kidding bashing. He just wanted to hack to put on a IRC bot script, which is pretty harmless, wrong, but harmeless.
Re:A Gay Script Kiddie too? (Score:1)
Tell that to the guy I just send a $600 bill to for cleaning up his computer after he was hacked by a "harmless kid looking to run IRC bots".
I'm sure he would disagree about how harmless it was.
Re:A Gay Script Kiddie too? (Score:1)
Re:A Gay Script Kiddie too? (Score:1)
Re:A Gay Script Kiddie too? (Score:2)
Re:A Gay Script Kiddie too? (Score:1)
All compromised systems cost people in the form of time spent cleaning it up. Once a system is compromised, unless you were running an integrity checking program, it's basically impossible to trust any binary on it without a clean reinstall, or a tedious comparison of checksums.
In a business environment, this means downtime, and lost money, in addition to whatever you have to pay whoever is cleaning it up.
Leaving up a system that is known to be compromised could expose you to legal liability from the actions of the cracker.
I can't believe you think cracking is harmless. Even if it is never discovered, that means that your privacy is compromised, your bandwidth and resources are stolen, and could possibly open you up to more malicious attacks if there is a badly secured backdoor installed.
Maybe you are just trying to rationalize your own illegal behavior? Cracking cost companies real money, not just fabricated figures.
A lot of the numbers are trumped up, and sometimes people overreact, like those kids that were put on extended suspension for hacking their school computer, but that doesn't mean that cracking is harmless, it is far from it.
Re:A Gay Script Kiddie too? (Score:2)
Maybe you are just trying to rationalize your own illegal behavior?
Maybe your a tight assed republican, hard core christen who believe in the death penalty, and hates gays.
BTW, people can support a prosecuted group, and not belong to that group. I for one, believe that the "Zero Tolerance" approach is more evil than murder. You need to look at each case, and punish for the level of intent. Stop believing the FUD, crackers/hackers have been around for 30+ years on our computer systems, only a very few cause monetary damage. But yes, he was pretty harmless compared to most, and yes I believe its wrong to enter a computer uninvited.
Re:A Gay Script Kiddie too? (Score:1)
Libertarian, and I have no position on the death penalty. Homosexuals are OK by me.
I view crackers more like shoplifters. I don't believe what they do is harmless, and the potential loss is much higher than in the case of shoplifting, but it is usually on the same scale.
I'm not believing FUD, I'm basing my opinion on the damage I have personally seen crackers cause. I do some freelance consulting in my spare time, and sometimes I do cleanups after someone is broken into. It's a serious matter, not to be taken lightly, when a business server is compromised.
It was a honeypot, he did nothing wrong (Score:2)
Re:It was a honeypot, he did nothing wrong (Score:1)
Re:It was a honeypot, he did nothing wrong (Score:2)
Not exactly raped, but there are female police officers who do that to catch men who are looking for prostitutes, where prostitution is illegal. If not done exactly right, this is called "entrapment" and the perpetrator walks free.
A badly designed honeypot may be contributing to hacking, and may be considered as participating in the crime. The honeypot sysadmin may be an accessory before the fact.
Thinking from a moral standpoint, i.e. considering the spirit of the law instead of merely the letter, I believe the guiltiest part here was the sysadmin who set the trap. He was an experienced computer professional who induced a somewhat confused teen to commit an illegal act.
Re:It was a honeypot, he did nothing wrong (Score:3, Funny)
Re:A Gay Script Kiddie too? (Score:1)
Re:A Gay Script Kiddie too? No. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:A Gay Script Kiddie too? (Score:2)
Here [monkey.org] is Theo de Raadt [openbsd.org] slamming into Darren Reed [anu.edu.au] over Darren having a bit of a poke at OpenBSD practices in the shadow of the recent OpenSSH hole [securityfocus.com] that led to a remote exploit in the default install.
I spend more than 8 hours of every single day of my life auditing code (and over the last week, 16+ hours a day), and here is some gay guy from Australia who spent all of Usenix in San Antonio years ago moping with droopy eyes after a very straight and girlfriended Mudge is not going to tell me that I am not doing enough
I love reading Theo's posts.
My favorite quote... (Score:1)
Re:My favorite quote... (Score:1)
Got guts? (Score:1, Troll)
Doesn't this prove at secure systems are bad ? (Score:2, Interesting)
So all this pro-OpenBSD propaganda by Theo de Rat saying "OpenBSD is secure, really, always" is rather a bad thing. I lulls sysadms into the belief that their system is save, making them unaware of the fact that a system is never secure at all.
Of course, the sources of every OS should be explicitly checked for security holes. But this shouldn't be the single feature of an OS. In fact claiming an OS "secure" just due to these checks is serving security rather badly.
I sometimes wonder if the OpenBSD project hasn't excatly the opposite effects than intended by it's maintainers for these very reasons. On the other hand there are some cynical commentators out there, who claim that the main intend of OpenBSD is to boost Theo's ego.
Re:Doesn't this prove at secure systems are bad ? (Score:1)
Re:Doesn't this prove at secure systems are bad ? (Score:1)
Re:Doesn't this prove at secure systems are bad ? (Score:2)
0.31% of defaced sites were running OpenBSD, which greatly contrasts with netcraft's [netcraft.com] statistics that over 59% of indexed web sites use the Apache httpd server, and considering that Apache runs on the BSD's, Linux, commercial *nix's, Windows, MacOS
Re:Doesn't this prove at secure systems are bad ? (Score:1)
Re:Doesn't this prove at secure systems are bad ? (Score:1)
I use OpenBSD. My biggest complaint is that binary updates are not provided, even though the initial installtion was from binaries. No, we need to manually patch, build, install, and configure. For this reason, unless you are a skilled and determined software developer, OpenBSD could easily be less secure for you. Theo you suck.
Does Theo realize this behavior will make unpached openbsd system more likely, thus encouraging greater deveopment of root kits?
Obligatory anti-linux statement (Score:1, Offtopic)
HH
Re:Obligatory anti-linux statement (Score:1)
Re:Obligatory anti-linux statement (Score:4, Informative)
So when redhat has a new securty flaw, it isn't so much as a redhat problem as it is to a open source community security flaw.
Sunny Dubey
Re:Obligatory anti-linux statement (Score:1)
The emphasis is because this is no longer true. A basic firewall is installed by default unless you explicitely say not to during the install, and the only questionable service that is left running is sunrpc. (probably because the errors caused by it not running when it needs to be aren't always very clear). Of course a home user probably doesn't need sunrpc.
Other than sunrpc, I think the only other running services are sshd, sendmail, configured to only accept connections from localhost, and maybe one more I am forgetting. The point is, Red Hat is pretty damn secure now, by default.
Re:Obligatory anti-linux statement (Score:2)
I like the folks at Red Hat, they have made huge contributions to everyone. The OpenBSD folks, for example, can't build a single executable without using a compiler that has been developed and maintained largely by Red Hat folks over the last ten years (about 50% of all gcc development work over the last decade, if not more, has been by Red Hat/Cygnus people, and it was their business/marketing people that got the funding to allow all those guys to work full-time on gcc).
Nevertheless, Red Hat has in the past put out releases that were horribly insecure, and this has been a problem for the net as a whole. They've gotten much better, but by the time a release sold in stores requires so many updates to make it secure that it would take 12 hours to download them all on a dialup modem, that makes the retail version dangerous to the public, a product that should be recalled. This goes both for Windows and Linux. Bad security doesn't just affect the owner of the system, an "owned" system is commonly used as a launch pad for distributed denial of service attacks.
Maybe the thing to do is to get any BSD or Linux distribution that is sold at retail or shipped on CDs that might not be current, to "phone home" the first time the system is connected to the net (telling the user what is happening, of course), so that the very first thing that happens is that all security updates that enable remote exploits get installed.
Re:Obligatory anti-linux statement (Score:1)
Excellent learning resource! (Score:3, Insightful)
Nice one. One question though - why not publish the IP of the hackers? Why protect their anonymity?
Obscuring the IP (Score:2, Interesting)
Well for one thing the IP may be dynamic. Some other person may have been assigned that IP. Another thing is that they might have been working from a compromised system (though I doubt that in this case.)
In any case the anonymity of at least one of them was not really too well protected as several of the posts above indicate.
I thought (Score:1, Funny)
NAT issue (Score:1)
From the article:
Firstly, assuming they used a tool like "nmap" to do the portscan they would already know that some of the ports are forwarded - nmap states which ones are in the results of the scan (I believe it can tell by the differences in TCP sequence numbers.)
Secondly, why would this detract from the realism of the situation? Not everyone who wants to provide limited services on the internet buys additional IPs. I know I don't have the money to!
Julian
Re:NAT issue (Score:2, Informative)
Re:NAT issue (Score:1)
BLAH (Score:2, Interesting)
For some interesting reading related to this article, take a look at the text files [quell.org] that come with the exploit that was used to crack this honeypot.
Most hacked? (Score:1)
Obviously, he's never heard of Windows.
Dollar Bill (Score:1)
Re:Dollar Bill (Score:1)
My sincerest apologies. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:My sincerest apologies. (Score:1)
Those two kids are probably loving the attentiong right now. Did you even check out their website?
The white paper was a good read; just keep in mind that these kids are most likely bragging to their friends about their being on the front page of slashdot.
Peace.
Alric.
Re:My sincerest apologies. (Score:2)
attention it is, but not positive attention. Their servers are being hit with posts of 'that was a dumb thing to do' (look at the guest book) and the like. It's a lot of negative attention, and the kids are probably feeling pretty shitty right now being the target of name-calling and attacks (verbal, and their computers are probably being attacked also.)
Don't stereotype that just because they are teenagers they crave any type of attention.
Whose sincerest apologies?! (Score:1)
(Off topic: How did this posting get +1 without any other comments to get karma from?)
call him at home... (Score:1)
I really hope... (Score:1)
That my proxy box will run something tight [it's fussy, wont run windoze for some reason], right now its an old RedHat release, which I thought I had amateurishly locked down, and windows 98 inside my network.
Honypots are only honeypots if they're intentional...
Most honeypots out there tend to be RedHat Linux as it's has the worst record for security out of pretty much every OS out there
Ali
Kid wants to hide his screenshots. (Score:2)
Too bad Google has it cached [216.239.35.100].
Re:Kid wants to hide his screenshots. (Score:2)
Script kiddying is nothing to be proud of, but I don't think it's anything to be ashamed of either. People who take care of servers on the net, who don't keep them patched should be ashamed. Before someone jumps down my throat, I'm not refering to the Honeypot, it did what it was supposed to do, I'm refering to real production servers.
If it were'nt for root kits, there would be less desire to keep secure, as a believe real hackers are a rarity amongst all the script kids. Script kids keep admins on their toes. Kids will be kids.
Mirror site of the whitepaper (Score:3, Informative)
Another copy of the whitepaper is available at:
http://www.anuzisnetworking.com/whitepapers/
And to verify, yes it was in fact me who posted the above apology. --Michael Anuzis
Re:Enough with the political correctness! (Score:1)
Perhaps Elmore is transgendered? Observe (from http://www.omegapunx.org):
My brother's girlfriend Danyel gave me this purply long skirt thingy. It is soo cool. I would wear it to school tommorow, but there are these kids in the loccer room who hate gay people. They say things like "Man, if you are gay I am going to kick your ass." And stuff like that. So, they would probably think I am gay or something and kick my ass. Welp, what are you going to do in this world these days.
Re:Enough with the political correctness! (Score:1)
English has no gender-neutral nominative singular pronoun, fool.
Re:Enough with the political correctness! (Score:2)
You clearly don't know what you are talking about, because the case (you said nominative) is irrelevant here.
It's in the third person singular that English has gender specific pronouns, and that goes for nominative (he/she), oblique (him/her) and genitive (his/her).
So who is the fool?
Re:Details of one of the hackers (Score:1)
Re:want to know who ;-) (Score:1)
cl
Re:active honeypot - 200.49.83.130 (Score:2)