IDS mailing list archives

Re: Active response... some thoughts.


From: fr0ck9 <fr0ck9 () yahoo com>
Date: Wed, 5 Feb 2003 14:42:14 -0800 (PST)

Being that UDP is connectionless, a rst will not have
an effect.  If the IDS has the ability to do an ICMP
Unreachable, then you might be able to affect the
attacking device.

-----Original Message-----
From: Ali Saifullah Khan
[mailto:ali_saifullah () hotmail com] 
Sent: Monday, February 03, 2003 2:18 PM
To: focus-ids () securityfocus com
Subject: Re: Active response... some thoughts.

Todd's question still remains. I'm sure you tried to
clear it out, but does
a "TCP" RST have any effect on "UDP"-oriented
connections ?
We're dealing with 2 different protocols here. The
protocol behind the RST
packet being TCP raises the previous question, and
that's what we're trying
to figure out here.

----- Original Message -----
From: mb_lima <mb_lima () uol com br>
To: <b_paul_palmer () yahoo com>
Cc: <focus-ids () securityfocus com>
Sent: Friday, January 31, 2003 9:34 PM
Subject: Re: Active response... some thoughts.


Hi Paul,

  It is perfect your explanation, but an attacker
can create
ways to keep a sensor busy enough so that "if the
sensor is
fast enough" is not true. But I agree with you. TCP
RST works
fine for me. Best Regards,

  Marcelo

Actually, TCP RST is more than just a marketing
solution. In practice, if the sensor is fast
enough, a
TCP RST can and often will prevent even single
packet
attacks. Here is why...

A TCP RST does not cause orderly connection
termination. It causes immediate connection
termination. That is, the protocol stack is not
required to deliver pending data and typically
does
not. If you also take into consideration that on
most
operating systems, applications are not dispatched
immediately upon arrival of new data, there is a
window of opportunity for the protocol stack to
receive and process the RST even before the
application can read the previously received data
from
the single packet attack!

On most operating systems, when a process is moved
from a wait queue to the run queue, it is not
given
immediate control of the CPU unless it has a
"realtime" priority or the run queue is completely
empty. Therefore, it will on average have to wait
half
a time slice before it can read its data. A
typical
time slice is 10ms. If the IDS can get the RST
sent in
under 5ms, it can often stop a single packet
attack.
The odds go up if the IDS is faster or the server
is
busy.

On Tuesday, January 28, 2003, at 08:31 AM,
Garbrecht,
Frederick wrote:

ummmm, just a technical quibble, but a TCP
reset
wouldn't work with the
Sapphire worm because it propagates using UDP
as
transport, not
TCP.....

It is just a minor quibble because the point is
that
the attack was
completely contained in a single packet. The same
would have held true
if it was over a TCP/IP connection. Once the
attack
has been
completed, a TCP RST would provide no value. It
is
the proverbial
closing the barn doors after the horse is already
out.

RST is largely a marketing solution, not a
technical
solution.

Todd


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