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authorThomas Voss <mail@thomasvoss.com> 2024-11-27 20:54:24 +0100
committerThomas Voss <mail@thomasvoss.com> 2024-11-27 20:54:24 +0100
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+Network Working Group I. Miller
+Request for Comments: 3128 Singularis Ltd
+Updates: 1858 June 2001
+Category: Informational
+
+
+ Protection Against a Variant of the Tiny Fragment Attack
+
+Status of this Memo
+
+ This memo provides information for the Internet community. It does
+ not specify an Internet standard of any kind. Distribution of this
+ memo is unlimited.
+
+Copyright Notice
+
+ Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2001). All Rights Reserved.
+
+Abstract
+
+ This document discusses how RFC 1858 compliant filters can be
+ vulnerable to a variant of the "Tiny Fragment Attack" described in
+ section 3.1 of the RFC. This document describes the attack and
+ recommends corrective action.
+
+1. Introduction
+
+ RFC 1858 provides an excellent description of a class of attack on
+ Internet firewalls and proposes countermeasures. However one of
+ these countmeasures, the "Indirect Method" (section 3.2.2) is
+ vulnerable to a combination of two of the attacks described.
+
+ The attack combines the features of the "Tiny Fragment Attack"
+ (section 3) and the "Overlapping Fragment Attack" (section 4).
+
+1.1 The scope of the attack
+
+ Where the filtering rules allow incoming connections to a machine AND
+ there other ports which allow only outgoing connections on the same
+ host, the attack allows incoming connections to the supposedly
+ outgoing-only ports.
+
+ Note that only the initial connection message need be fragmented.
+ Once the connection is established further traffic on it is legal.
+ The significance of this weakness will depend on the security policy
+ in force.
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+Miller Informational [Page 1]
+
+RFC 3128 Protection Against a Tiny Fragment Attack June 2001
+
+
+2. The Tiny Overlapping Fragment Attack
+
+ The attack typically consists of sending three fragments.
+
+ Fragment 1: (Fragment offset = 0; length >= 16)
+ Includes whole header and is entirely legal. Typically it
+ describes a SYN packet initiating a new TCP connection to a port
+ on the target host that is allowed to receive incoming
+ connections.
+ e.g., Incoming connection to port 25 SMTP.
+
+ Fragment 2: (Fragment offset = 0; length = 8)
+ Is only the first 8 bytes and could be legal depending on the
+ other 8-bytes of the header, but is NOT legal combined with the
+ corresponding bytes from Fragment 1. Such a fragment includes
+ only the port numbers and sequence number from the TCP header.
+ Typically this packet replaces the destination port number with a
+ port number on which the destination host that is not allowed to
+ receive incoming connections.
+
+ Fragment 3: (Fragment offset >= 2; length = rest of message)
+ Contains no header and completes the message. (This third
+ fragment is not part of the attack. However Fragment 1 cannot be
+ the complete message or it would be passed up to the application
+ before Fragment 2 arrived so a third fragment is necessary.)
+
+2.1 Example of the attack
+
+ Consider the following trivial set of rules for incoming packets:
+
+ +---+-------+-------+-------+-------+-----------------------+
+ | No|Action | Source| Dest. | Flags | Purpose |
+ | | | Port | Port | | |
+ +===+=======+=======+=======+=======+=======================+
+ | 1 |Permit | >1023 | SMTP | ANY | Incoming E-mail |
+ +---+-------+-------+-------+-------+-----------------------+
+ | 2 |Permit | >1023 | ANY | Ack=1| Existing FTP data |
+ | | | | | channel connections. |
+ +---+-------+-------+-------+-------+-----------------------+
+ | 3 |Deny | ANY | ANY | ANY | Default deny |
+ +---+-------+-------+-------+-------+-----------------------+
+
+ Fragment 1: attacker(1234) -> target(SMTP) Ack=0
+ This is a new SMTP connection and is permitted by rule 1.
+
+ Fragment 2: attacker(1234) -> target(Telnet=23) Ack=absent
+ All fields present conform to rule 2, as it could be the start of
+ an FTP packet.
+
+
+
+Miller Informational [Page 2]
+
+RFC 3128 Protection Against a Tiny Fragment Attack June 2001
+
+
+ Depending on the precise implementation of the fragment reassembly in
+ the target machine's IP stack, fragment B may overwrite fragment A to
+ produce:-
+
+ attacker(1234) -> target(Telnet) Ack=0
+ (new telnet connection)
+
+2.2 The failure of "Indirect Method"
+
+ The Indirect Method attempts to solve both Tiny Fragment and
+ Overlapping Fragment attacks, solely by rejecting packets with FO=1.
+ However none of the above fragments have FO=1, so none are rejected.
+
+ The failure is clear on careful reading. In section 3.2.2 "Indirect
+ Method", RFC 1858 states:-
+
+ The indirect method relies on the observation that when a TCP
+ packet is fragmented so as to force "interesting" header fields
+ out of the zero-offset fragment, there must exist a fragment with
+ FO equal to 1.
+
+ This is normally true where the fragments are genuine fragments,
+ generally by bona fide software, but it is simply not true that a
+ hacker forging fragments is forced to produce an FO=1 fragment simply
+ because (s)he has produced an 8-byte FO=0 fragment. The
+ vulnerability flows from this false premise.
+
+3. Countermeasures
+
+ Whereas apparently very elegant, RFC 1858's Indirect Method is not
+ robust. In addition to blocking FO=1 packets, it is also necessary
+ to block FO=0 that hold less than a complete header.
+
+ if FO=0 and PROTOCOL=TCP and TRANSPORTLEN < tmin then
+ DROP PACKET
+ if FO=1 and PROTOCOL=TCP then
+ DROP PACKET
+
+4. Security Considerations
+
+ This memo is concerned entirely with the security implications of
+ filtering fragmented IP packets.
+
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+
+
+Miller Informational [Page 3]
+
+RFC 3128 Protection Against a Tiny Fragment Attack June 2001
+
+
+5. Author's Address
+
+ Ian Miller
+ Singularis Ltd
+ 32 Stockwell Street
+ Cambridge
+ CB1 3ND UK
+
+ Phone: +44 1223 511943
+ EMail: Ian_Miller@singularis.ltd.uk
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+Miller Informational [Page 4]
+
+RFC 3128 Protection Against a Tiny Fragment Attack June 2001
+
+
+6. Full Copyright Statement
+
+ Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2001). All Rights Reserved.
+
+ This document and translations of it may be copied and furnished to
+ others, and derivative works that comment on or otherwise explain it
+ or assist in its implementation may be prepared, copied, published
+ and distributed, in whole or in part, without restriction of any
+ kind, provided that the above copyright notice and this paragraph are
+ included on all such copies and derivative works. However, this
+ document itself may not be modified in any way, such as by removing
+ the copyright notice or references to the Internet Society or other
+ Internet organizations, except as needed for the purpose of
+ developing Internet standards in which case the procedures for
+ copyrights defined in the Internet Standards process must be
+ followed, or as required to translate it into languages other than
+ English.
+
+ The limited permissions granted above are perpetual and will not be
+ revoked by the Internet Society or its successors or assigns.
+
+ This document and the information contained herein is provided on an
+ "AS IS" basis and THE INTERNET SOCIETY AND THE INTERNET ENGINEERING
+ TASK FORCE DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING
+ BUT NOT LIMITED TO ANY WARRANTY THAT THE USE OF THE INFORMATION
+ HEREIN WILL NOT INFRINGE ANY RIGHTS OR ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF
+ MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
+
+Acknowledgement
+
+ Funding for the RFC Editor function is currently provided by the
+ Internet Society.
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+Miller Informational [Page 5]
+