Firewall Wizards mailing list archives
RE: ICMP blocking on PIX .4.4.1
From: GibsonB () gruntal com
Date: Fri, 5 May 2000 23:01:55 -0400
Essentially any protocol can be compromised and used for nefarious purposes. Port 80 is one of the most exploited ports on the Internet. That doesn't mean that we should shut down web browsing. What you do is minimize a black hat's ability to use Port 80 to exploit your network. This is why a Firewall is much better suited to control diagnostic protocols. An SPF can recognize direction in UDP and ICMP. Thus you can control how these protocols are used. A router is very poor at controlling either protocol. Traceroute and ping invaluable tools for quick diagnostic analysis. Alternative tools may be able to do the same but they are so ubiquitous and simple to understand. They also pose their own set of problems. ICMP can used to carry malicious traffic but I am unaware of ICMP ever being used in an gain access exploit. -----Original Message----- From: R. DuFresne [mailto:dufresne () sysinfo com] Sent: Friday, May 05, 2000 1:53 PM To: GibsonB () gruntal com Cc: nawk () real-secure com; firewall-wizards () nfr net; phred () pacificwest com; jseymour () LinxNet com Subject: RE: [fw-wiz] ICMP blocking on PIX .4.4.1 Is not loki still an possible way to tunnel out via ICMP in this fashion? Thus compromising a security policy? My understanding, and please, do correct me if I'm interpreting incorrectly is that not all ICMP and all connectionless protocol traffic is safe and warranted. And in such cases that UDP and some ICMP is blocked, disabling pings and traceroutes, there are alternative tools that can be used to do the same kinda of diagnostics. Just as with fingerd output, UDP and ICMP can be helpful tools to aid an outsider in getting information from the inside that is best not being made public, and or hosing up your routing scheme <i.e. ICMP redirects>. Thanks, Ron Dufresne On Fri, 5 May 2000 GibsonB () gruntal com wrote:
I don't agree with this. ICMP is an invaluable tool for diagnostics. If
you
shut it down then you are limiting your ability to troubleshoot problems.
What you want to do is allow ICMP to go out but not to come in. Ideally what you want to do is allow certain types of ICMP out(ie Echo requests)
and
only certain types of ICMP to come in(ie Echo Reply, Time exceeded, unreachable). This is not easily done in a router. Actually blocking connectionless protocols in general is not easy thing to do in a router. -----Original Message----- From: User nawk [mailto:nawk () real-secure com] Sent: Saturday, April 29, 2000 12:57 PM To: R. DuFresne Cc: firewall-wizards () nfr net; phred () pacificwest com; jseymour () LinxNet com Subject: Re: [fw-wiz] ICMP blocking on PIX .4.4.1 Hi, That is exactly how it should be done. You want ICMP and spoofing stopped on the router. Firewalls are a great device, but not perfect. Cisco's ACL do a much better job on blocking. Just make sure the lists are not to long so the CPU of the router does not get saturated. Think of it
as
what if you or someone makes a mistake on the firewall and now you opened yourself up. All it is are layers of defense. If you really want to be
anal,
setup ACL on your border routers, then apply your rules on the firewall
and
last setup another router behind the firewall with ACL again. This way the attacker has to pass all three to get into your network. Thanks ----- Original Message ----- From: "R. DuFresne" <dufresne () sysinfo com> To: "Jim Seymour" <jseymour () LinxNet com> Cc: <nawk () real-secure com>; <firewall-wizards () nfr net>; <phred () pacificwest com> Sent: Thursday, April 27, 2000 6:06 PM Subject: Re: [fw-wiz] ICMP blocking on PIX .4.4.1It's always been our impression that veiwing security as an 'onion' on pulls all the onoins skins together to form as tight a security system
as
possible to deal with the security policy at hand. This would include ACL's in routers to deal with ICMP/UDP and spoofing there, as well as backup those rules in the firewalls rule sets, just in case one device barfed up and packets slipped by it. Even the most recent issue of sysadmin mag has an article titled: The Use of Routers in Firewall Setup May 2000 vol 9 # 5 Thanks, Ron DuFresne On Thu, 27 Apr 2000, Jim Seymour wrote:nawk <nawk () real-secure com> wrote:I think it's best practice to block things like icmp and spoofing on your routers not firewall. The firewall is just to block thingslikeports and provent access to your internal network.Two schools of thought on that. The consultant that installed our first Gauntlet firewall (TIS was offering at the time free installs
and
one day of training for up to three people) recommended that the
router
be stripped of *all* packet filtering rules so that the firewall would see everything. His logic was that Gauntlet was much more capable at detecting and reporting activity than was the firewall router. My feeling was that sufficient rules to protect the *router* itself
had
to remain. So that's what I did: the router has only enough rules in it to protect *it*. The firewall gets everything else. (Except when
I
get really fed up with something. Then I block it at the router.) Note also that there is a potential problem in simply out-right blocking all ICMP at the router. If you're running a mail gateway on the firewall (as I do [Postfix]), blocking ICMP path MTU discovery can lead to SMTP sessions timing-out on large emails. (See, for example: http://msgs.SecurePoint.com/cgi-bin/get/postfix9904/37/1.html.) And I don't see any particular reason why others shouldn't be allowed to
ping
my firewall. Allowing ICMP (or any connection-less protocol, such as UDP) *through* the firewall is another issue entirely. Connection-less protocols are not safe. Cannot be made safe. Other than perhaps allowing syslog from the router to a syslog host, specifically, I don't see any particular reason to allow any UDP through a firewall. As regards the original poster's query: I don't know the PIX firewall, but wouldn't it be possible to log on to the PIX and run your pings
and
traceroutes from there? Less convenient, to be sure. But far safer than allowing UDP through it, I should think. I'll take safety over convenience any day. Regards, Jim-- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ admin & senior consultant: darkstar.sysinfo.com http://darkstar.sysinfo.com "Cutting the space budget really restores my faith in humanity. It eliminates dreams, goals, and ideals and lets us get straight to the business of hate, debauchery, and self-annihilation." -- Johnny Hart testing, only testing, and damn good at it too!*********************************************************************** Gruntal & Co., L.L.C.'s e-mail system is for business purposes only. Messages are not confidential. All e-mail may be reviewed by authorized supervisors, compliance or internal audit personnel. E-mail will be archived for at least three years and may be produced to regulatory agencies or others with a legal right to access such information. Gruntal will not accept trade order instructions via e-mail. Please telephone your Account Executive to place trade orders. Gruntal & Co., L.L.C. ***********************************************************************
-- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ admin & senior consultant: darkstar.sysinfo.com http://darkstar.sysinfo.com "Cutting the space budget really restores my faith in humanity. It eliminates dreams, goals, and ideals and lets us get straight to the business of hate, debauchery, and self-annihilation." -- Johnny Hart testing, only testing, and damn good at it too! *********************************************************************** Gruntal & Co., L.L.C.'s e-mail system is for business purposes only. Messages are not confidential. All e-mail may be reviewed by authorized supervisors, compliance or internal audit personnel. E-mail will be archived for at least three years and may be produced to regulatory agencies or others with a legal right to access such information. Gruntal will not accept trade order instructions via e-mail. Please telephone your Account Executive to place trade orders. Gruntal & Co., L.L.C. ***********************************************************************
Current thread:
- Re: ICMP blocking on PIX .4.4.1 Jim Seymour (May 04)
- <Possible follow-ups>
- Re: ICMP blocking on PIX .4.4.1 User nawk (May 04)
- Re: ICMP blocking on PIX .4.4.1 Lorens Kockum (May 12)
- Re: ICMP blocking on PIX .4.4.1 dominik . ratajski (May 05)
- RE: ICMP blocking on PIX .4.4.1 GibsonB (May 05)
- RE: ICMP blocking on PIX .4.4.1 R. DuFresne (May 12)
- RE: ICMP blocking on PIX .4.4.1 Henry B. Tindall, Jr. (May 12)
- Stefan Savage : Hacking the TCP stack R. DuFresne (May 12)
- Re: Stefan Savage : Hacking the TCP stack Frederick N. Chase (May 17)
- Re: ICMP blocking on PIX .4.4.1 Lorens Kockum (May 12)
- RE: ICMP blocking on PIX .4.4.1 GibsonB (May 12)
- RE: ICMP blocking on PIX .4.4.1 Jeff B Boles (May 15)
- RE: ICMP blocking on PIX .4.4.1 David Ashwood (May 15)
- RE: ICMP blocking on PIX .4.4.1 GibsonB (May 15)