2000-05-23
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This paper is a continuation of the Know Your Enemy series. The first three papers covered the tools and tactics of the black-hat community. This paper, the fourth of the series, studies step by step a successful attack of a system. However, instead of focusing on the tools and tactics used, we will focus on how we learned what happened and pieced the information together. The purpose is to give you the forensic skills necessary to analyze and learn on your own the threats your organization faces. Background The information covered here was obtained through the use of a honeypot. The honeypot was a default server installation of Red Hat 6.0. No modifications were made to the default install, so the vulnerabilities discussed here exist on any default RH 6.0 installation. Also, none of the data presented here has been sanitized. All IP addresses, user accounts, and keystrokes discussed here are real. This is done on purpose to both validate the data and give a better understanding of forensic analysis. Only the passwords have been modified to protect the compromised systems. All sniffer information presented here is in snort format. Snort is my sniffer and IDS system of choice, due to its flexibility, capabilities, and price (its free). All actions commited by the black-hat were captured with snort. I use the IDS signatures supplied by Max Vision at www.whitehats.com. You can query his arachNIDs database for more information on all the alerts discussed throughout this paper. You can find my snort configuration and signature file here. Once you are done reading the paper, you can conduct your own forensic analysis, as I have supplied all the raw data. As you read this paper, take note of how many different systems the black-hat uses. Also, throughout this paper, the black-hat is identified as she, but we have no idea what the true gender is. The Attack
On 26 April, at 06:43 snort alerted me that one of my systems had been
attacked
with a 'noop' attack. Packet payloads containing noops are an indication
of a buffer overflow attack. In this case, snort had detected the
attack and logged the alert to my /var/log/messages file (which is monitored
by swatch). Note:
throughout this paper, the IP address 172.16.1.107 is the IP address of the
honeypot.
All other systems are the IP addresses used by the black-hat.
My honeypots receive numerous probes, scans and queries on a daily
basis. However, an alert like this gets my immediate attention,
as it indicates a system may have been compromised. Sure enough,
less then two minutes later system logs indicate the system is compromised,
as our attacker initiates a connection and logins to the box.
Our intruder has gained super user access and now controls the system. How was this accomplished, what happened? We will now begin our forensic analysis and put the pieces together, step by step. The Analysis When studying an attack, the best place to start is the beginning, where did the black-hat start? Black-hats normally start with information gathering, they need to determine what vulnerabilities exist before they can strike. If your system has been compromised, this is normally not the first time the black-hat has communicated with that system. Most attacks involve some type of information gathering before the attack is launched. So, this is where we will start, the black-hat's information gathering stage.
If we look at the alert above, the attack was on port 53. This
indicates a DNS attack was launched on our system. So I will begin
by looking through my snort
alerts and find possible information probes for DNS. We find
a DNS version query probe coming from the same system that attacked us.
Notice the date of the probe, April 25. Our system was attacked April 26, from the same system. Our system was compromised the day after the probe. I am guessing that an automated tool was used by our black-hat to scan numerous systems for a known DNS vulnerability. After the scan was ran, the black-hat reviewed the results, identified vulnerable systems (including ours) and then launched her exploit. We have now pieced together the first part of our story. Our black-hat scanned us on 25 April, then exploited the system the following day. Based on our IDS alerts, it appears we were hit by a script kiddie with a well known DNS vulnerability. But how was the attack launched, and how does it work? Lets find out. The Exploit
Like most commercial IDS systems, snort has the capability of showing
us the packet load data of all IP packets. We will use this capability
to conduct an analysis of the exploit. The exploit information was
obtained from the snort logs (stored in tcpdump binary format). I
queried the snort log and began reviewing the packets starting when the
attack was launched. I did not limit my information query to the
host 63.336.81.13, as the attacker may have used other systems. This
is in fact the case, as our black-hat used at least three different systems
to run the exploit. The goal of the exploit is to gain a root shell on
the remote system. Once the black-hat gains a root shell, they can
run any command as root. Normally an account is placed in the /etc/passwd
and /etc/shadow file. You can find both the exploit and remote commands
executed in the detailed
forensic analysis. Once the exploit was ran and a root shell
obtained, the following commands were ran as root.
Our black-hat runs several commands as root.
First, she confirms the system she is on (uname-a), the directory
(pwd)
and then confirms her uid (id).
She then adds two user accounts to the system, twin and hantu,
both with the same password. Note that twin has the UID of
506 and hantu has the UID of 0 (on a side note, hantu means
ghost in Indonesian). Remeber, most systems do not let UID 0 telnet
to the box. So she had to create an account that would give her remote
access, then another account that would give her UID 0. So, our black-hat
ran an exploit on DNS, gained a root shell, then inserted two accounts.
Within 90 seconds of the exploit she telnets into the box and gains root
access (see timestamps of
logs below). So, what does she do next?
Gaining Access Fortunately for us, telnet is a plaintext protocol, the data is not encrypted. This means we can decode the sniffer traces and capture all the her keystrokes. Snort has already done this for us, another reason I prefer snort. By analyzing the keystrokes snort captured of the telnet sessions, we can determine what our black-hat does. What I like best about decoding telnet sessions as we capture not only STDIN (the keystrokes) but STDOUT and STDER. Lets review the telnet sessions and identify the black-hats activities (comments in RED).
First, our friend telnets to the box (from 213.28.22.189)
as twin and then gains superuser access as hantu. Remeber, she
cannot
just telnet in as hantu as UID 0 is restricted for remote access.
#' !"'!"# ' 9600,9600'VT5444VT5444
Next, our friend ftps to another system to get her
toolkit.
Third, she grabs her backdoor, compiles bj.c,
and installs it as a replacement for /sbin/login. Notice all the commands
executed
at the command prompt for the compile. It appears that all the compile
commands were
executed 'cut and paste' style.
She now attempts to implement the compiled backdoor
Dooh! She just can't get it right, lets try again. She
ftp's to the site re-downloads the
backdoor.
This is now her second attempt at compiling the backdoor. Notice the exact
same "cut and paste" commands are used.
Now we see the compiled backdoor implemented. The valid copy of
/bin/login is moved to /usr/bin/xstat, while the compiled trojan
bj.c
is used to replace /bin/login. This is the backdoor. This trojan
allows anyone with the TERM setting of vt9111 unauthorized access
Now she covers her moves. I believe this is scripted,
cut and paste.
Look at all the commands she executed at a single command prompt.
Also, I believe this is a 'generic' clean up script, notice how it tries
to remove files that do not exist (such as /tmp/h).
I find this interesting.
Our black-hat's generic clean up script generated errors as it attempted to
remove files
that did not exist. I believe our black-hat saw these errors and became
concerened, because she
then attempts to manually remove these same files, even though they do not
exist.
That's it, our friend has installed a backdoor, bj.c. The backdoor allows unauthenticated users in based on the TERM setting, in this case VT9111. Once completed, she logged out from the system. After leaving the system, the black hat made several more connections and modificatons to the systems. Review the raw data to review the black-hats keystrokes. Trinoo, The Return Once the system had been compromised, I took it offline to review the data (such as Tripwire). However, I noticed over the next week that a variety of systems were attempting to telnet to the box. Apparently the black-hat wanted back in, most likely to use the compromised system for more nefarious activity. So, I brought the compromised box back online, curious to see if the black-hat would return and what she would do. Sure enough, almost two weeks later, she returned. Once again, we captured all the keystrokes using snort. Review the following telnet sessions and learn how our compromised system was to be used as a Trinoo client.
On May 9, 10:45 am, our friend telnets in from
24.7.85.192. Note how
she uses the backdoor VT9111 to get into the system, bypassing
authentication.
Once
on the system, she attempts to use DNS. However, DNS is still broken
on the box. Remember, DNS was exploited to gain root access, so the
system can no longer resolve domain names.
The
black-hat ftp's to a system in Singapore and downloads a new tool kit.
Notice the 'hidden' directory .s she creates to store the toolkit.
She gains access with the same user name that was inserted in our box.
Our black-hat has just installed and started Trinoo
client. Next, she
attempts to hop to another compromised system. Notice how she sets
her VT TERM. This system most likely also has a backdoor. The
connection fails since DNS is not working.
Our
friend leaves, only to return later from yet a different system
(137.132.216.35)
and attempt more mischief.
Following this, several attempts were made to use the system as a Trinoo
attack against other systems. At this point I disconnected the system.
The black-hat intended to use the compromised system for destructive purposes
and little more could be gained from the monitoring the connection.
Summary We have just covered step by step how a honeypot was compromised, backdoored, and eventually used for a Trinoo attack. On 25 April, the black-hat first scanned the honeypot for which version of DNS version it was running. The following day, on 26 April, she executed the NXT-Named exploit to gain a root shell (see the NXT-Howto for a black-hat HOWTO on the exploit). Once she gained a root shell, she created two system accounts, twin and hantu. Following this she immediately telneted to the box, gained super user access, then downloaded and installed her backdoor, bj.c. She then executed a script to cover her tracks and then left the system. Over the following weeks she attempted to connect to the system, however it was offline. Finally, on May 9 she gained access, installed and then executed Trinoo. At this point the honeypot was taken offline for good. The majority of forensics was conducted using system logs from the compromised system and snort logs and alerts. Conclusion We have just covered a step by step analysis of how a honeypot compromised. The goal was to determine how the system was compormised using forensic anaylisis of system and IDS logs. By analyzing this attack, you should have a better understanding of what to expect and look for when analyzing a system attack. I would like to thank both Marty Roesch and Max Vision for their contribution to the security community. What I have learned here would not have been possible without their hard work. And last, but not least, our friend welek, without whom this paper would have never been possible :) All logs and information were forwarded to CERT before this information was released. Also, attempts were made to contact all IPs involved in the attack. Lance Spitzner enjoys learning by blowing up his Unix systems at home. Before this, he was an Officer in the Rapid Deployment Force, where he blew up things of a different nature. You can reach him at lance@spitzner.net. |
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