nanog mailing list archives

Re: ISP port blocking practice


From: Zhiyun Qian <zhiyunq () umich edu>
Date: Thu, 2 Sep 2010 18:05:58 -0500

You are exactly right. We also talked about stateful firewall that can protect the GoodNet. For NAT box, depends on the 
type of NAT, it is possible to setup port forwarding on the router (mostly home routers) via uPnP without any 
authentication (I think many home routers are like this by default). And since the machine in GoodNet is also 
compromised, it would not be difficult to achieve this.

Regards.
-Zhiyun
On Sep 2, 2010, at 5:45 PM, William Herrin wrote:

On Thu, Sep 2, 2010 at 5:59 PM, Zhiyun Qian <zhiyunq () umich edu> wrote:
http://www.eecs.umich.edu/~zhiyunq/pub/oakland10_triangular-spamming.pdf

One of the high-level findings is that we developed probing techniques
to verify that indeed most ISPs are only blocking 1) "outgoing traffic
of destination port 25" instead of 2) "incoming traffic with source
port 25", which means that these ISPs are vulnerable to the
assymetric routing attack.

If I understand your idea correctly:

1. GoodNet filters TCP destination port 25 packets from his customer
PwndBox, preventing PwndBox from spamming.

2. BadGuy on BadNet sends a forged TCP SYN packet to SpamVictim
allegedly from PwndBox on GoodNet.

3. PwndBox receives the response packets from SpamVictim and tunnels
them to BadGuy allowing BadGuy to complete the spam.

4. GoodNet didn't stop it because PwndBox never sent any packets to TCP port 25.

5. Since the IP address used was GoodNet's, GoodNet's reputation is damaged..

6. GoodNet could prevent this attack vector by also blocking packets
with TCP source port 25 sent -to- PwndBox.

Is that correct?

I observe that if PwndBox is behind a stateful firewall such as a COTS
NAT box, that also prevents this attack.

Regards,
Bill Herrin



-- 
William D. Herrin ................ herrin () dirtside com  bill () herrin us
3005 Crane Dr. ...................... Web: <http://bill.herrin.us/>
Falls Church, VA 22042-3004





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