Re: Scanning. Is it dangerous? -reply

[ljoseph () RICHMOND EDU (Joseph, Lorne)]

IMHO, I believe the major problem with receiving scans from outside of your
network in not knowing what the person performing the scan has encountered.
One suggestion is to periodically, how often?, perform that same kind of
scans from outside of your network to get a Birdseye view of what the person
performing the scan sees.  Once you have the results of the scans you can
patch or secure the vulnerabilities accordingly.  If you just let them scan
then you won't know when or where they found something.

The real question then becomes, do you scan after each scan received?
Probably not, you have to determine the amount of resources to at least
consistently follow behind these script kiddies and make sure you didn't
miss something that you'll regret later.  Does anyone agree with me or am I
being the extremist?

Lorne Joseph
Security Specialist
University of Richmond
804-289-8655

-----Original Message-----
From: Sarunas Krivickas [mailto:KrivickasS () PASTAS KAM LT]
Sent: Saturday, April 29, 2000 11:13 AM
To: INCIDENTS () SECURITYFOCUS COM
Subject: Scanning. Is it dangerous?

Hi folks,

As I see, almost everyone there are worried about some kind of scanning for
own subnets, ports, etc. Do you think it is real danger to you system? So if
it is true, the scans as a dangerous actions has to be recognized in your
risk management and IT security policy. Does the simple scan of your system
has the right place in your policy and also is the trigger to initiate
actions and rise the alarm? Of course, we are able to recognize DoS or
something like that, but almost all incidents there are talking about
simple, usual and not dangerous actions. Yes, you have to think about this
kind of actions (I do not call it as attack) if your system is totally
unprotected.
Lets go to discuss a little bit about subject!
My question is how the recognized simple scanning is described in your IT
security policy and why scanning is so dangerous for you?

Regards,
Sarunas