Module 16: Attacking the Foundation

CyberOps Associate v1.0 se

Module Objectives
Module Title: Attacking the Foundation

Module Objective: Explain how TCP/IP vulnerabilities enable network attacks.

Topic Title Topic Objective

IP Vulnerabilities Explain how IP vulnerabilities enable network attacks.
TCP and UDP Vulnerabilities Explain how TCP and UDP vulnerabilities enable network attacks.

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16.1 IP Vulnerabilities

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IP Vulnerabilities
IP Vulnerabilities
The following table lists some of the common IP-related attacks:
IP Attacks Description
Threat actors use Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) echo packets (pings) to
ICMP attacks discover subnets and hosts on a protected network, to generate DoS flood attacks, and to
alter host routing tables.
DoS attacks Threat actors attempt to prevent legitimate users from accessing information or services.
Similar to a DoS attack, but features a simultaneous, coordinated attack from multiple
DDoS attacks
source machines.
Address spoofing Threat actors spoof the source IP address in an attempt to perform blind spoofing or non-
attacks blind spoofing.
Threat actors position themselves between a source and destination to transparently
Man-in-the-middle
monitor, capture, and control the communication. They could simply eavesdrop by
attack (MiTM)
inspecting captured packets or alter packets and forward them to their original destination.
Threat actors gain access to the physical network, and then use an MiTM attack to hijack a
Session hijacking
session.
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IP Vulnerabilities
ICMP Attacks
• ICMP was developed to carry diagnostic messages and to report error conditions when
routes, hosts, and ports are unavailable. ICMP messages are generated by devices when a
network error or outage occurs.
• The ping command is a user-generated
ICMP message, called an echo request,
that is used to verify connectivity to a
destination.
• Threat actors use ICMP for
reconnaissance and scanning attacks.
• Threat actors also use ICMP for DoS
and DDoS attacks, as shown in the
ICMP flood attack in the figure.

Note: ICMP for IPv4 (ICMPv4) and ICMP for IPv6 (ICMPv6) are susceptible to similar types of attacks.
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IP Vulnerabilities
ICMP Attacks (Contd.)
• Networks should have strict ICMP access control list (ACL) filtering on the network edge to
avoid ICMP probing from the internet.
• The following table lists the common ICMP messages of interest to threat actors.

ICMP Message Description

ICMP echo request and echo reply This is used to perform host verification and DoS attacks.
This is used to perform network reconnaissance and scanning
ICMP unreachable
attacks.
ICMP mask reply This is used to map an internal IP network.
This is used to lure a target host into sending all traffic through a
ICMP redirects
compromised device and create a MITM attack.
This is used to inject bogus route entries into the routing table of a
ICMP router discovery
target host.

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IP Vulnerabilities
Amplification and Reflection Attacks
• Threat actors often use amplification and reflection
techniques to create DoS attacks.
• The figure shows how an amplification and
reflection technique called a Smurf attack is used
to overwhelm a target host.
• Amplification - The threat actor forwards ICMP
echo request messages to many hosts. These
messages contain the source IP address of the
victim.
• Reflection - These hosts all reply to the spoofed
IP address of the victim to overwhelm it.
• Threat actors also use resource exhaustion
attacks.
Note: Newer forms of amplification and reflection attacks such as DNS-based reflection and
amplification attacks and Network Time Protocol (NTP) amplification attacks are now being used.
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IP Vulnerabilities
Address Spoofing Attacks
• IP address spoofing attacks occur when a threat actor creates packets with false source IP
address information to either hide the identity of the sender, or to pose as another legitimate
user.
• The threat actor can then gain access to otherwise inaccessible data or circumvent security
configurations.
• Spoofing is usually incorporated into another attack such as a Smurf attack.

• Spoofing attacks can be non-blind or blind:

• Non-blind spoofing - The threat actor can see the traffic that is being sent between the
host and the target. The threat actor uses non-blind spoofing to inspect the reply packet
from the target victim. Non-blind spoofing determines the state of a firewall and sequence-
number prediction. It can also hijack an authorized session.
• Blind spoofing - The threat actor cannot see the traffic that is being sent between the
host and the target. Blind spoofing is used in DoS attacks.
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IP Vulnerabilities
Address Spoofing Attacks (Contd.)
• MAC address spoofing attacks are used when threat actors have access to the internal network.

• Threat actors alter the MAC address

of their host to match another known
MAC address of a target host, as
shown in the figure.
• The attacking host then sends a
frame throughout the network with
the newly-configured MAC address.
• When the switch receives the frame,
it examines the source MAC address.

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IP Vulnerabilities
Address Spoofing Attacks (Contd.)
• The switch overwrites the current CAM
table entry and assigns the MAC address
to the new port, as shown in the figure.
• It then forwards frames destined for the
target host to the attacking host.
• Application or service spoofing is another
spoofing example. A threat actor can
connect a rogue DHCP server to create
an MiTM condition.

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16.2 TCP and UDP Vulnerabilities

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TCP and UDP Vulnerabilities
TCP Segment Header
• TCP segment information appears immediately after the IP header. The fields of the TCP
segment and the flags for the Control Bits field are displayed in the figure.
• The following are the six control bits of the TCP segment:
• URG - Urgent pointer field
significant
• ACK - Acknowledgment field
significant
• PSH - Push function
• RST- Reset the connection
• SYN - Synchronize sequence
numbers
• FIN - No more data from sender
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TCP and UDP Vulnerabilities
TCP Services
TCP Three-Way Handshake
A TCP connection is established in three steps:
• The initiating client requests a
client-to-server
communication session with
the server.
• The server acknowledges the
client-to-server
communication session and
requests a server-to-client
communication session.
• The initiating client
acknowledges the server-to-
client communication session.

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TCP and UDP Vulnerabilities
TCP Attacks
Network applications use TCP or UDP ports. Threat actors conduct port scans of target devices
to discover which services they offer.
1. TCP SYN Flood Attack
• The TCP SYN Flood attack exploits the
TCP three-way handshake.
• The figure shows a threat actor
continually sending TCP SYN session
request packets with a randomly
spoofed source IP address to a target.
• The target replies with a TCP SYN-
ACK packet to the spoofed IP address
and waits for a TCP ACK packet.
Those responses never arrive.
• The target host has too many half-
open TCP connections, and TCP
services are denied to legitimate users.
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TCP and UDP Vulnerabilities
TCP Attacks (Contd.)
2. TCP Reset Attack
• A TCP reset attack can be used to terminate TCP communications between two hosts.
• A threat actor could do a TCP reset attack and send a spoofed packet containing a TCP RST
to one or both endpoints.
• Terminating a TCP session uses the following four-way
exchange process:
• When the client has no more data to send in the stream, it
sends a segment with the FIN flag set.
• The server sends an ACK to acknowledge the receipt of
the FIN to terminate the session from client to server.
• The server sends a FIN to the client to terminate the
server-to-client session.
• The client responds with an ACK to acknowledge the FIN
from the server.
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TCP and UDP Vulnerabilities
TCP Attacks (Contd.)
3. TCP Session Hijacking
• TCP session hijacking is another TCP vulnerability.
• A threat actor takes over an already-authenticated host as it communicates with the target.
• The threat actor must spoof the IP address of one host, predict the next sequence number,
and send an ACK to the other host.
• If successful, the threat actor could send, but not receive, data from the target device.

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TCP and UDP Vulnerabilities
UDP Segment Header and Operation
• UDP is commonly used by DNS, DHCP, TFTP, NFS, and SNMP.
• It is also used with real-time applications such as media streaming or VoIP. UDP is a
connectionless transport layer protocol.
• The UDP segment structure, shown in the figure, is much smaller than TCP.
• Although UDP is normally
called unreliable, this does not
mean that applications that
use UDP are always
unreliable. It means that these
functions are not provided by
the transport layer protocol
and must be implemented
elsewhere if required.
• The low overhead of UDP makes it very desirable for protocols that make simple request and
reply transactions.
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TCP and UDP Vulnerabilities
UDP Attacks
• UDP is not protected by any encryption. Encryption can be added to UDP, but it is not
available by default.
• The lack of encryption means that anyone can see the traffic, change it, and send it on to its
destination.
UDP Flood Attacks
• In a UDP flood attack, all the resources on a network are consumed.
• The threat actor must use a tool like UDP Unicorn or Low Orbit Ion Cannon. These tools
send a flood of UDP packets, often from a spoofed host, to a server on the subnet.
• The program will sweep through all the known ports trying to find closed ports. This will
cause the server to reply with an ICMP port unreachable message.
• As there are many closed ports on the server, this creates a lot of traffic on the segment,
which uses up most of the bandwidth. The result is very similar to a DoS attack.
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16.3 Attacking the Foundation
Summary

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Attacking the Foundation Summary
What Did I Learn in this Module?
• The IPv4 header consists of several fields while the IPv6 header contains fewer fields. It is
important for security analysts to understand the different fields in both the IPv4 and IPv6
headers.
• There are different types of attacks that target IP. Common IP-related attacks include:
• ICMP attacks
• Denial-of-Service (DoS) attacks
• Distributed Denial-of-Service (DoS) attacks
• Address spoofing attacks
• Man-in-the-middle attack (MiTM)
• Session hijacking

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Attacking the Foundation Summary
What Did I Learn in this Module? (Contd.)
• ICMP was developed to carry diagnostic messages and to report error conditions when
routes, hosts, and ports are unavailable.
• Threat actors can conduct a variety of TCP related attacks:
• TCP port scans
• TCP SYN Flood attack
• TCP Reset Attack
• TCP Session Hijacking attack
• The UDP segment (i.e., datagram) is much smaller than the TCP segment, which makes it
very desirable for use by protocols that make simple request and reply transactions such as
DNS, DHCP, SNMP, and others.

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