CIT 612

Fundamentals of
Computer Security
Mohammed A. Saleh
http://ifm.ac.tz/staff/msaleh/CIT612.html
30th December 2009
1
Web Attacks and Internet
Vulnerabilities
 With interest in computer and network security, you
would need to know about the Internet
 Focuses on the internet protocols that keep the internet
humming
 We will look at vulnerabilities of several of these
services, as well as exploits that can be used to attack
them

2
About the Internet
 When many people think of the Internet, the first thing
that comes to mind is often the World Wide Web
 The Internet is composed of many different connection
schemes called protocols
 All the protocols transmit over a common system of
communication called Transmission Control
Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP)
 Protocols include:
 File Transfer Protocol (FTP)
 allows rapid, reliable transfer of data files between repositories,
called FTP servers, and between computers with FTP client
software installed, called FTP clients.
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Cont …
 Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP)
 allows users to access pages of text that are marked up using a
special format called the Hypertext Markup Language (HTML)
 HTML tags are inserted into a web document to indicate the
desired font, color, and position of text, and it facilitates linking to
different different web sites, files, or pages
 Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP)
 The SMTP service allows a standardized method of electronic
mail transmission
 Domain Name Service (DNS)
 The Domain Name Service resolves the easy-to-read names
familiar to Internet users, such as http://ifm.ac.tz , to the Internet
Protocol addresses that actually guide information around the
network, such as 66.96.134.2
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Cont …
 Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP)
 DHCP automatically provides an Internet Protocol (IP) address,
such as 172.16.32. 15, to a computer on a local area network
 An IP address is required to communicate with other network
devices that exist beyond the immediate proximity of the
computer requesting the address

5
Packets, Addresses and Ports
 To increase the reliability of communications, messages
are chopped up into chunks of uniform length, called
packets
 A packet-switched network gives each packet an
individual address label and then shoots it out onto the
network, trusting that each packet will eventually make it
to its destination
 There are mechanisms deployed to determine whether
packets sent are corrupted or delayed, and to facilitate
retransmission of replacements.

6
Cont …
 So how do packets help make networks and the Internet
reliable?
 a packet travels over the circuit quickly
 If it goes missing, its replacement can be retransmitted without taking a long
time
 it is understood that packets may take one of several possible
routes to their destination
 there is a possibility that packets may actually spend part of their journey
traveling in parallel

7
More concepts
 An Internet Protocol (lP) address describes a location on
the network
 An IP is also known as a network address or a logical
address
 The use of logical address allow the network to route
packets to the correct part of the network
 IP addresses generally take the form of four numbers,
separated by periods, in which each number is between
1 and 255
 For instance, 192.168.32.12
 Each device on the other hand a hardware address,
known as the MAC address
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More concepts
 From a security perspective, It is important that packets
are identified by function, what they are intended to do.
 This allows them to be switched to the correct location
by inspection without having to open them up and
examine their contents
 Packets use the port number to state the packet function
 Each IP address comes with roughly 65,000 port
numbers
 Different types of network traffic use different ports.

9
Cont …
Question: Why do you need to understand this
multitier system of addressing?
Answer: most network attacks in some way involve falsely
manipulating or replacing the IP address, MAC address, or
Port
 In fact, one of the most important tools used today for
network safety, the firewall, is based almost entirely on
recognizing suspicious or invalid combinations of
addresses and ports

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Network Protocols
 A protocol is a defined procedure for interconnecting and
interacting
 It determines how data are transported over the Internet,
or over a LAN that uses TCP/IP, provide a variety of
services
 Some protocols move web pages, some move email,
some move files, and some move streaming media
 Many of the most important network protocols, which
also happen to be most commonly attacked, are the
protocols needed to make communication over a
network possible.

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Data Navigation Protocols
 Which is the fundamental network protocol?
 It describes how packets will navigate from network to
network
 The IP also provides a fragmentation and reassembly
function
 Fragmentation means that if a message, or datagram, is
too long, an IP packet can be split into smaller chunks
for transmission through the network
 Reassembly on the hand mean putting messages back
together when it gets to its final destination
 What IP does not do is keep track of whether messages
actually make it to where they are going
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Cont …
 IP treats each piece of a message as an independent
entity unrelated to any other message
 A message is also referred to as an Internet datagram
 The IP must link up with several other protocols to insure
reliable end-to-end delivery and retransmission of missing
messages
 For reliable delivery IP works with another data navigation
protocol known as Transmission Control Protocol (TCP)
 TCP wraps itself around the IP packet and provides the
information needed to see a packet through multiple hops
to its destination and determines if all packets made the
trip
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Cont …
 TCP can figure out which packets were lost and order up
replacements
 Another protocol used for delivery is User Datagram
Protocol (UDP) one that moves packets with SPEED
sacrificing end-to-end delivery
 The File Transfer Protocol mentioned previously
operates using TCP
 All the data travels reliably over the network, and the
transmission is not finished until the packets have all
made the trip and been reassembled in order at the
destination

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Cont …
 TCP can detect errors because each packet uses a
cyclical redundancy check (CRC), which is like a parity
or checksum, to check itself.
 A checksum is a mathematical mechanism that detects
errors in transmission
 adds up the numeric value of all the characters transmitted and
seeing if the total is the same at both ends of the link
 If IP needs to report errors to the sender, it uses helping
protocols from a suite called Internet Control Message
Protocol (ICMP)

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Data Navigation Protocols
Attacks
 These four protocols: IP, TCP, UDP, and ICMP are the
basis for Internet communications
 They are also the basis of many attacks that use the
Internet or of attacks against the Internet itself
 How does TCP assure reliability?
 by introducing sequence numbers and acknowledgments to IP
 For TCP to start transmission, it has to establish a link,
between the sender and recipient, by using a three-way
handshake
 Once the handshake is complete both parties can start
communicating
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 TCP Connection establishment
Three way handshake:
Step 1: client host sends TCP client server
segment to server segme
nt (SE
Q Client
 specifies initial seq # #)
 no data

) , ACK
Step 2: server host receives Se rv e r#
SEQ
segment, replies with en t (
segm
ACK segment
 server allocates storage ACK

 specifies server initial seq. #

Step 3: client receives segment

ACK, replies with ACK
segment, which may
contain data
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Cont
 A hacker trick is to open up a session (begin a
communication) with a system under attack, receive an
acknowledgment, and then leave the connection half-
completed
 Tying up resources and memory on the attacked device
 Do this enough times and
 systems can hang up or cease functioning
 denying services to legitimate users
 can crash
 Why is IP such a pushover?
 Simple: Because it's not being used for that which it was built
 The military wanted a network protocol that would survive a worst
case scenario something along the lines of global thermonuclear war
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Cont …
 The network needed to pass traffic to every location smoothly
and efficiently, and to be able to reconfigure itself around bad
routes and sudden outages
 Instead, the Internet became an "information
superhighway" that led to economic growth, prosperity,
and jobs.
 a tool of enhanced communications, helping to bring the entire
human family closer together
 Along the ‘highway’ came robbers
 These are unintended consequences against which the Internet
was never fortified

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Cont …
 The network needed to pass traffic to every location smoothly
and efficiently, and to be able to reconfigure itself around bad
routes and sudden outages
 Instead, the Internet became an "information
superhighway" that led to economic growth, prosperity,
and jobs.
 a tool of enhanced communications, helping to bring the entire
human family closer together
 Along the ‘highway’ came robbers
 These are unintended consequences against which the Internet
was never fortified

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Other Internet Protocols
 Protocols can be subjected to attack
 The easiest way to attack these datagrams is by
monitoring the network using a packet sniffer
 Packet sniffer monitors and decodes packets, allowing
the attacker to gather information about the network and
the devices and persons attached to it
 A more sophisticated attack would be:
 change the contents of a datagram (data modification)
 make it appear as if it came from a different party (spoofing)
 On the other hand packet sniffers are useful tools for
network administrators because they allow you to see
what protocols are on the network
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File Transfer Protocol
 Designed to promote sharing files by connecting
machines reliably and efficiently
 Remote access of computers became more
commonplace
Flaws of FTP
 However, the FTP protocol is subject to abuse
 In the first place, it transmits in the clear without encryption
shielding
 Attackers can just sit and listen to a network connection
 FTP is also very subject to anonymous access
 highly desirable in many environments, where to regulate access requires
issuing passwords to every applicant

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Simple Mail Transfer Protocol
 Designed to transfer email messages reliably and
efficiently
 It does this by setting up a channel between the initial
sender and a receiver
 Once the transmission channel is established, the mail
sender issues a MAIL command
 If the mail receiver can accept mail, it responds with an
OK reply
 Mail that can't be delivered because of incorrect or
invalid addresses are returned with a note from
whichever mail server determined the problem

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Cont …
Flaws of SMTP
 Email is normally transmitted in the clear
 means that a host that pretends to be an email relay can access
all email that passes through it
 mail could then be copied or modified
 When an attacker suspects that a user or administrator is getting
suspicious, it is relatively easy to disconnect the relay and lay low
 It is very easy to create an email message that looks as if
it was sent from someone other than the true sender
 an create problems in its own right
 also makes it easy to formulate an attack that sends tens of
thousands of emails out to various addresses on the Internet,
email bombing
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SMTP and Spam
 The ability to spoof a return address and easily mail the same
message to multiple recipients has lead to the uncontrolled
outbreak of junk email, or spam
 Spam, by some accounts, represents up to 50% of email
traffic and is popular for one reason: email is dirt cheap
 Email has few costs: scraping up a few million email addresses off
newsgroups and chain letters is not really that hard
 Launching and sending such messages is largely automatic
 Other recipients will resent the intrusion and request not to be
disturbed as for invalid addresses, email systems will send
back notices to the sender to this effect
 Tracking spammers down requires a lot of detective work
 The best way to cope is to use the Antispam features of your email
client software to filter undesired email into the recycle bin before you
even see it.
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Domain Name Service
 DNS is used to resolve a friendly name, such as
www.ifm.ac.tz, to an IP address, such as 66.96.134.2
 DNS is needed because while the Internet runs with IP
addresses, people tend to think in words
 DNS is not usually the first step in address resolution
 To save time and prevent wasted bandwidth, a table of
address and their URLs is usually stored on the local
machine
 Your computer starts at this table when you make a web
request
 When your local machine cannot find where to send a web
request, it contacts the nearest DNS server, which tells the
computer every thing it knows about the desired IP address
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Cont …
 If the address is unknown at the DNS server, that DNS
server consults the next DNS server up the chain, , until
your address is found
Flaws of DNS
 First, if you seed the local machine's cache with incorrect
data, it sends the user's communications to the wrong
place, including possibly a decoy site of the attacker's
own design
 Second, if you pollute the database of one of the nation's
big DNS servers, you may shut down a major portion of
the Internet, which is always good for achieving status in
the cracker underworld
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Cont …
 Third, if you deny access to the DNS server that
provides address resolution to a population of users, say
company networks, then your users are not going to be
able to contact web sites for which they do not already
have IP addresses
 Poisoning the DNS system doesn't only slow down or
prevent the access of web pages and services
 Mail may not work
 Remote file systems may be rendered inaccessible, and
 Network printing may go down.
 Essentially everything that involves an external
communication is at risk when DNS fails.
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Summary
 Internet protocols have opened up a host of security
issues
 The protocols were meant to be robust, not secure
 The trust by which computers are able to interact and
complete complicated business processes turns out to
be the undoing of much business

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Questions