Triggering a complex snort rule (packet forging)

[Asiri Rathnayake <asiri.rathnayake () gmail com>]

Dear All,

This may be a bit naive question but I couldn't find a definitive answer on
the web.

Let's say we have a rule of the following form:

alert tcp $EXTERNAL_NET $HTTP_PORTS -> $HOME_NET any (msg:"...";
flow:to_client,established; content:"..."; nocase; http_header;
metadata:service http; classtype:attempted-user; ...)

This rule will only be triggered on the return traffic from some server
(?). If I understand correctly, this means the client (a computer on the
HOME_NET) made a request to some server (EXTERNAL_NET) and this rule is
looking into the response from the server.

My question is, how can such a rule be tested? (I need to trigger the rule
repeatedly)

I was wondering if it's possible to forge packets with Scapy [1] and throw
them at HOME_NET in such a way that would make Snort believe that those
packets correspond to the signature in the rule above. Would Snort fall
into such forged traffic?

I found [3] while reading [2], but it seems rule2alert is in an early stage
of development (it says it can only handle simple rules). If someone can
kindly confirm if the strategy I have highlighted above is viable, then I
will be able to dig deeper into forging packets with Scapy. I thought it
would be wise to ask here first just in case if I'm headed the wrong way
(I'm a bit new to IDP/IDS domain).

Thanks a lot for your time.

- Asiri


[1] http://www.secdev.org/projects/scapy/
[2] http://seclists.org/snort/2011/q1/648
[3] https://code.google.com/p/rule2alert/

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