Servers in the Wild… …and the threats that lurk about. DePaul University Information Security Team TLT Presentation 08 May 2002

Presented by… This presentation is by the DePaul University Information Security Team. Visit us at

Risks

Information Security Encompasses… Computer Security Network Security Data Security

Threats Generally, attackers fall into one of three categories. Script Kiddiez – scum of the earth, limited skills, enjoy easy attacks, etc. Hackers – curious individuals with a “need to know”. Crackers – malicious attackers with advanced skills, able to write and implement exploit code, etc.

Victims Who is at risk? Institutions Corporations Home Users Governments

Motives The underground hacking world has many motives including: Political Statements Turf Wars between Hacking Groups Financial Gain Arrogance Curiosity Boredom

Motives (cont’d) These motives are surely bound to carry into the “overground” in the form of Industrial Espionage Financial Gain Political Statements

Attacks Denial or interruption of Services Elevation of privileges permitting access to sensitive data Destruction, modification or theft of data Identity theft, forgery or impersonation

Statistics

Incident Reports The CERT Coordination Center (CERT/CC) gathered the following annual incident statistics [1]. 1997: 2, : 3, : 9, : 21, : 52, (Q1): 26,829

Published Vulnerabilities CERT/CC also maintains the following statistics on public vulnerability reports [1]. 1997: : : : 1, : 2, (Q1): 1,065

Threat Analysis

Our threat analysis will focus on Internet worms

Morris Internet Worm Unleashed on 02 November 1988 by Robert Morris Jr. Experimental code not intended to cause widespread infection Infected approximately 6000 hosts, which equaled 10% of the Internet in 1988 Exploited UNIX and VAX operating system variants through rsh/rexec, sendmail and finger applications Proved the weaknesses of such unauthenticated protocols

“Code Red version 2” Release Date: July 19, 2001 Known as a “worm” as the program connected, infected and replicated itself onto other hosts Infected more than 359,000 unique hosts within 14 hours At peak infection time 2,000 new hosts were infected per minute Infected unpatched Microsoft IIS web servers Continued on, after infection, to attack local and remote hosts Was concerned with quantity, not quality, of infection Exploited a known vulnerability from June 18, 2001.

“Code Red version 2” (cont’d) Exploited known vulnerabilities Maintained an intelligent engine for scouting out new victims Brought the “worm” to new levels.

Common Ground The Morris and CRv2 worms, 13 years apart, both used the same common methods of attack. Attacked vulnerable unauthenticated applications and protocols Spread via network, and not disk-to-disk transfer (as viruses spread) Were fairly intelligent in design and infection methods

Lessons Learned Worms can be more intelligent than we would hope The impact of a worm can reach catastrophic levels and threaten critical infrastructure components of daily life Vendors continue to distribute vulnerable code; even after such vulnerabilities are discovered! One cannot trust the vendor solely for security Research and development of information security tools and procedures can assist in mitigating attacks

No End in Sight New viruses and worms are released daily. Many new automated attacks focus on circumventing firewalls and monitoring devices through the manipulation of peer to peer communication. Exploits are plenty in the underground.

Impact

University Environment Distributed in nature Continuously growing A known “playground” for attackers Increased risks due to the lack of centralized security Requires active management efforts and monitoring of systems

University Env. (cont’d) Different groups within the organization require different policies and procedures Centralized security policies are necessary

Recommendations

Centralization Commission INFOSEC to draft recommendations for the University including Acceptable Use Policies Installation and Configuration Guidelines Response Procedures and Incident Handling Guidelines

Centralization (cont’d) Implement a University-wide committee dedicated to increasing the security posture of the University, and act as a role model for other organizations

Enforcement Require new hosts, or network resources, to abide by guidelines set forth in University-wide policies Recommend departmental audits of critical resources on a recurring basis

Management Departments should allocate a technical contact responsible for each resource If not possible, require unmanaged systems to be taken over by Information Systems (IS)

The End Thank you for your time and attention

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References [1] CERT/CC Statistics