IDS mailing list archives

Re: Intrusion Detection Evaluation Datasets


From: Paul Schmehl <pschmehl_lists () tx rr com>
Date: Wed, 18 Mar 2009 18:31:45 +0000

--On Tuesday, March 17, 2009 22:01:48 +0100 Damiano Bolzoni <damiano.bolzoni () utwente nl> wrote:

On 16/03/2009 19.39, Paul Schmehl wrote:

Unless you can be more specific, I'm going to call your claim bogus. It
is entirely possible to write one snort signature that will detect
*every* instance of an attempt to overflow a buffer in a particular
applicaiton no matter what the attack "signature" is. You just have to
understand the snort logic and syntax and understand packet analysis
well enough.

I don't see the words "buffer overflow" in my post, so maybe it's possible to
write a signature to catch *any* instances exploiting a certain buffer
overflow...but I'm more interested in the following. Can you write a *single*
signature to detect this:

POST / HTTP/1.1

...
Content-Length: N (1000 <= N <= 204800)

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA....

or

BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBB....

or

11111111111111111111.....

(N times the same byte value, and each request a different byte)


I would be really thankful (and I'm not being sarcastic).

I don't know if any IDS could do this. You'd have to capture the value of Content-Length, insert that value into a variable, then compare that variable against the number of bytes of a single value, all while examining the same packet.

Conceptually, the rule would look like this:

alert tcp any any -> $HTTP_SERVERS $HTTP_PORTS (msg: "Web attack - overflow attempt"; flow: to_server, established; content:"POST /"; http-method; content:"Content-Length3A"; nocase; depth:1; content:"This is where you would have to capture the value of Content-Length"; urilen:"value of Content-Length"; pcre:"/\w/"; classtype:web-application-attack; sid:1000001; rev:1;)

--
Paul Schmehl, Senior Infosec Analyst
As if it wasn't already obvious, my opinions
are my own and not those of my employer.
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