Web Server Administration TEC 236 Securing the Web Environment

Overview Identify threats and vulnerabilities Secure data transmission Secure the operating system Secure server applications

Overview Authenticate Web users Use a firewall Use a proxy server Use intrusion detection software

Identifying Threats and Vulnerabilities Focus is on threats from the Internet Hackers sometimes want the challenge of penetrating a system and vandalizing it – other times they are after data Data can be credit card numbers, user names and passwords, other personal data Information can be gathered while it is being transmitted Often, operating system flaws can assist the hacker

Vulnerabilities in Operating Systems Operating systems are large and complex which means that there are more opportunities for attack Although Windows has had its share of problems, often inattentive administrators often fail to implement patches when available Some attacks, such as buffer overruns, can allow the attacker to take over the computer

Securing the Operating System Use the server for only necessary tasks Minimize user accounts Disable services that are not needed Make sure that you have a secure password In addition to using upper case, lower case numbers and symbols, hold down the ALT key on a number (on the numeric keypad) from 1 to 255 Check a table of ALT values to avoid common characters The use of the ALT key will thwart most hackers

Securing Windows There are many services that are not needed in Windows for most Internet-based server applications Alerter Computer browser DHCP client DNS client Messenger Server Workstation Also, the registry can be used to alter the configuration to make it more secure such as disabling short file names

Vulnerabilities of Servers By design, servers are open servers can be harmed by a series of very large messages Sending an overwhelming number of messages at the same time can prevent valid users from accessing the server Viruses can be sent to users Retrieving over the Internet often involves sending your user name and password as clear text

Securing Exchange 2000 can also use SSL for the protocols it uses To prevent someone from sending large messages until the disk is full, set a size limit for each mailbox

Securing Data Transmission To secure data on a network that is accessible to others, you need to encrypt the data SSL is the most common method of encrypting data between a browser and Web server Secure Shell (SSH) is a secure replacement for Telnet

Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) A digital certificate issued by a certification authority (CA) identifies an organization The public key infrastructure (PKI) defines the system of CAs and certificates Public key cryptography depends on two keys A public key is shared with everyone The public key can be used to encrypt data Only the owner of the public key has the corresponding private key which is needed to decrypt the data

Establishing an SSL Connection

Vulnerabilities in Web servers Static HTML pages pose virtually no problem Programming environments and databases add complexity that a hacker can exploit Programmers often do not have time to focus on security

Securing the Web Server Enable the minimum features If you don't need a programming language, do not enable it Make sure programmers understand security issues Implement SSL where appropriate

Securing the Web Server- IIS The URLScan utility blocks potentially harmful page requests The IIS Lockdown utility has templates to ensure that you only enable what you need Change NTFS permissions in \inetpub\wwwroot from Everyone Full Control to Everyone Execute In IIS 5, delete \samples \IISHelp and \MSADC folders Delete extensions you do not use, such as.htr,.idc,.stm, and others

Authenticating Web Users Both Apache and IIS use HTTP to enable authentication HTTP tries to access a protected directory and fails Then it requests authentication from the user in a dialog box Accesses directory with user information Used in conjunction with SSL

Configuring User Authentication in IIS Four types of authenticated access Windows integrated authentication Most secure – requires IE Digest authentication for Windows domain servers Works with proxy servers Requires Active Directory and IE Basic authentication User name and password in clear text Works with IE, Netscape, and others Passport authentication Centralized form of authentication Only available on Windows Server 2003

Using a Firewall A firewall implements a security policy between networks Our focus is between the Internet and an organization's network You need to limit access, especially from the Internet to your internal computers Restrict access to Web servers, servers, and other related servers

Types of Filtering Packet filtering Looks at each individual packet Based on rules, it determines whether to let it pass through the firewall Circuit-level filtering (stateful or dynamic filtering) Controls complete communication session, not just individual packets Allows traffic initialized from within the organization to return, yet restricts traffic initialized from outside Application-level Instead of transferring packets, it sets up a separate connection to totally isolate applications such as Web and e- mail

A Packet-filtering Firewall Consists of a list of acceptance and denial rules A firewall independently filters what comes in and what goes out It is best to start with a default policy that denies all traffic, in and out We can reject or drop a failed packet Drop – (best) thrown away without response Reject – ICMP message sent in response

Using a Proxy Server A proxy server delivers content on behalf of a user or server application Proxy servers need to understand the protocol of the application that they proxy such as HTTP or FTP Forward proxy servers isolate users from the Internet Users contact proxy server which gets Web page Reverse proxy servers isolate Web server environment from the Internet When a Web page is requested from the Internet, the proxy server retrieves the page from the internal server

Using Intrusion Detection Software Intrusion detection is designed to show you that your defenses have been penetrated With Microsoft ISA Server, it only detects specific types of intrusion In Linux, Tripwire tracks changes to files

Tripwire Tripwire allows you to set policies that allow you to monitor any changes to the files on the system Tripwire can detect file additions, file deletions, and changes to existing files By understanding the changes to the files, you can determine which ones are unauthorized and then try to find out the cause of the change

Tripwire After installing Tripwire, you configure the policy file to determine which files to monitor A default list of files is included but it will take time to refine the list A report can be produced to find out which files have been added, changed, and deleted Usually, it runs automatically at night

Intrusion Detection in ISA Server The following intrusions are tracked Windows out-of-band (WinNuke)–A specific type of Denial-of- Service attack Land–A spoofed packet is sent with the SYN flag set so that the source address is the same as the destination address, which is the address of the server. The server can then try to connect to itself and crash. Ping of death –The server receives ICMP packets that include large files attachments, which can cause a server to crash. IP half scan –If a remote computer attempts to connect to a port by sending a packet with the SYN flag set and the port is not available, the RST flag is set on the return packet. When the remote computer does not respond to the RST flag, this is called an IP half scan. In normal situations, the TCP connection is closed with a packet containing a FIN flag. UDP bomb –A UDP packet with an illegal configuration. Port scan –You determine the threshold for the number of ports that are scanned (checked) before an alert is issued.

Summary Every computer connected to the Internet represents a potential target for attack Hackers can gather data and modify systems SSL can secure data transmission Keep each server to a single purpose such as Web server or Keep applications and services to a minimum

Summary User authentication controls access to one or more Web server directories Firewalls control access policies between networks A proxy server delivers content on behalf of a user or server application Intrusion detection software identifies intrusions but typically does not prevent them