Re: Possible security hole

[Ryan.Russell () SYBASE COM (Ryan Russell)]

> The first 25 packets were lost before the interface's initialization. The
> packets with sequence number greater than 34 are droped from the firewall.
> What about the packets with sequence number 25-34? Is it possible that
> someone can use this time (after the interface's initialization and before
> the firewall's initialization) to do something bad?

Absolutely.  There is a period of time while the FW is booting when the
OS is up, but the FW software is not.  FW-1 makes no attempt to hook
the IP stack in such a way to prevent this.  You MUST secure the
underlying OS ON YOUR OWN.  FW-1 does NOT "harden" the OS..

As for pings being dropped.. it's not unusual for some OSes
(IOS included) to respond to pings, and then not, and then
respond again during a boot.  The second time not responding
may be when the FW software kicked it, depending on the rules
set.

                         Ryan