RE: Researchers predict worm that eats the Internet in 15 minutes

[InfoSec News <isn () c4i org>]

Forwarded from: Ryan Counts <webmaster () badsushi com>

Greetings,

        I hate to say it, but getting organizations to release patches
to security holes is only 10% of the cure.  If I remember right,
either Code Red or Nimda (or both, I can't find the emails that
corroborate my thoughts) targeted security holes that Microsoft had
already released patches for; not to mention a properly configured
server (simple things such as setting the webroot to any other drive
than C, and disabling unused virtual hosts and services) eliminated
the threat.

So, why did these worms succeed?  Poor security policies; poor
maintenance and non-updated Operating Systems.  Is this really
Microsoft's fault, or the organizations that either don't hire
experienced personnel or have lazy or overtaxed admins?  My vote is
for the latter, and it's a situation that has no clear solution.  I
can almost guarantee you that if such a worm outbreak such as the one
described in this article occurs, it will probably use an old, well
known security hole that's been addressed by the manufacturer.  And no
matter whether the worm targets Windows, Unix, Linux, OSX or all of
the above, the worm will owe its success to the same factors that made
Nimda so successful.

In my opinion, the critical question is how to fix this problem?  Do
we require IT Personnel to get a license before practicing
administration like Doctors and hold them accountable?  Do we fine
companies for not keeping their hardware and software maintained?  Or
do we hand out a bunch of Etch-a-Sketches?

Thanks,
Ryan

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-isn () attrition org [mailto:owner-isn () attrition org] On Behalf
Of InfoSec News
Sent: Wednesday, October 23, 2002 12:55 AM
To: isn () attrition org
Subject: Re: [ISN] Researchers predict worm that eats the Internet in 15
minutes

Forwarded from: Russell Coker <russell () coker com au>

On Tue, 22 Oct 2002 10:56, InfoSec News wrote:
> http://www.nwfusion.com/news/2002/1021worm.html
>
> By Ellen Messmer
> Network World Fusion
> 10/21/02
>
> The three authors of the research, published two months ago, present
> a future where worm-based attacks use "hit lists" to target
> vulnerable Internet hosts and equipment, such as routers, rather
> than scanning aimlessly as the last mammoth worm outbreaks, Nimda
> and Code Red, did last year. And this new breed of worms will carry
> dangerous payloads to allow automated denial-of-service and file
> destruction through remote control.

Let's talk about "dangerous payloads".  A large part of the problem
here is that daemons get too much access to a typical server.  
There's no need for a daemon to have access to write any file on the
system (root access on a typical Unix machine).  Posix capabilities
combined with non-root operation are a good step in the right
direction but still aren't as comprehensive as you would like.  Also
Posix capabilities don't work well when a program has a need to change
UIDs or write files owned by other users on occasion.

Any decent Mandatory Access Control scheme should allow the daemons to
be restricted enough that they have minimal opportunities to do
damage.  Even a compromised sshd should not result in the server being
killed!

However if "dangerous payload" means a DOS attack on whitehouse.gov
then that's something that is probably impossible to prevent.

[...]



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