The IP spoof problem shouldn't have been such a suprise to anyone. It has been known publicly known about since 1985 with several papers on the topic available to anyone. The papers were like telling how it would be possible to pick the lock on every door in the world and it is more suprising that that it took so long before someone actually started exploiting the problem. And with this problem, it is relatively pretty simple to correct so that the tcp's sequence numbers are not so easy to guess. It is pretty sad that you have to have enough hackers exploiting a problem before these security vulnerabilities are addressed and it is unfortunate that many vulnerabilities are kept quiet by vendors till enough customers have been abused and someone finally speaks out. But here is something I find disturbing that you may want to pursue and correct. I emailed most of the major Unix vendors that have this vulnerability asking in light of the recent problems, if they were going to be providing a patch to correct the situation and if so, how long. There was several types of responses. In some cases, I have not received a response after 2 days so either their security-alert email alias is overloaded and taking days or weeks to respond. Or they haven't decided anything yet or it is going to /dev/null, which may be the attitude of some vendors. The typical response that I did received was that they were looking into it and whether it was worth patching anytime soon. One response that did almost suprise me coming from a major vendor was that because of CERT's stance on the problem and saying the problem could be corrected by firewalls, they didn't feel a need to release a patch. They also told me that IP Spoofing only made your network slightly vulnerable. (I am not sure what could make your network more vulnerable, Posting every confidental file and password from your systems to Usenet?) >From CERT's advisory it does not look like they are encouraging vendors to provide any sort of patches and the only solution is to block spoofed packets via firewall/router. I do not know how the majority of you feel, but I think a more complete solution is needed here, not to just rely on firewalls and routers. There are too many people on the net that do not have the comforts of a firewall and even within a large organization, you do not want your machines vulnerable to attack from anyone else who is behind your firewall. Not only that, I hope most people realize that a firewall is not a total solution to security on the net. It can be in some cases detrimental due to an organization feeling all comfortable behind their firewall and deceive them into not applying any other security precautions. There have been quite a few cases where firewall security has been by-passed and that should be a lesson to not rely on just a firewall. I hope that other people who rely on vendors for patches tell their own vendor how they feel and maybe with enough response from customers, we will see companies come forward and provide needed security patches. If you feel safe behind your firewall with all your machines insecure, then you probably won't need to e-mail your vendor. 8-) Or if you rely on free Unixes like NetBSD, they already have a patch available. Obviously, the total solution will not be just with firewalls, nor patches. Cryptography will be a large part of a total and permanent solution so that network traffic can be properly encrypted and authenicated, but for now, firewalls and patches can lower your risks to successful attacks a fairly great amount. I have written a list of vendors and how to contact their security group and hope that people use it to discuss with their vendors their security needs. Hopefully we will see a vendor come forward and provide patches and the others soon to follow, eh? Appended below is a list of Unix vendors. Vendor Contacts FAQ Version: 2.0 This Security FAQ is a resource provided by: Internet Security Systems, Inc. 2000 Miller Court West Tel: (404) 441-4531 Norcross, Georgia 30071 Fax: (404) 441-2431 - Computer Security Consulting - Penetration Analysis of Networks - ------------------------------------------------------------------------ "It [Vendor Security Contact FAQ] is the kind of thing that makes you look good at work when your boss decides he's joe security and wants a patch (for like rdist - duh!) yesterday..." - Tim Scanlon, System Analyst Vendor Security Contacts: Reporting Vulnerabilities and Obtaining New Patches The following FAQ is a list of security contacts to reach at various vendors for reporting security vulnerabilities and obtaining new security related patches. With the rising number of people and hosts gaining access to the Internet, the basic integrity of the Net needs to be maintained. Many of security incidents that happen on Internet could have been avoided by installing security patches that are available by vendors. It is important to get the recent patches and ensure that your systems are configured properly. With intruders and their underground network having quick access to security vulnerabilities, it is important that administrators have security information available and not rely on just One organization. Here are the security contacts that information is available for: A/UX Cray Research Dec HP IBM Next Novell SCO SGI Sun Other important security contacts included are: CERT Contact CIAC Contact When reporting a new security bug, try to be as specific as possible about how to reproduce it, which OS release (uname -a), and any other release numbers of software that are involved. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ A/UX Contact information for A/UX as follows: Send security related information to the following people: Erik E. Fair: fair@apple.com and CC: staff@apple.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Cray Research Contact information for Cray Research as follows: Cray Research customers should first direct questions and concerns to on-site support personnel (if provided by their service contract). Other contacts should be made through: Technical Service Center Cray Research, Inc. 655F Lone Oak Drive Eagan MN 55121 USA tel. +1-612-683-5600 email. support@cray.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------ DEC, Digital Equipment Corporation Contact information for DEC is as follows: Send security related information to the following person: FIRST Contact: Rich Boren rich.boren@cxo.mts.dec.com, (719) 592-4689 Security patches are issued by Customer Support Centers. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ HP, Hewlett Packard Contact information for HP as follows: For security concerns, questions, or problems, you can contact: security-alert@hp.com Obtaining Patches: Patches and mailing lists are available through the HP SupportLine service. More information is available in their bulletin. The HP SupportLine mail service is available to anyone who can send electronic mail via the Internet. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ IBM, International Business Machines Contact information for IBM as follows: IBM support @ 1-800 237-5511 Email to services@austin.ibm.com Send security related information to Nick Trio (nrt@watson.ibm.com, a.k.a. (postmaster@ibm.com) Unix person on IBM's Computer Emergency Response Team) and Alan Fedeli ( fedeli@vnet.ibm.com). There are some security patches on anonymous FTP software.watson.ibm.com in pub/aix3 for AIX. Security patches are issued through your IBM sales office. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Novell, Inc. Contact information for Novell as follows: Phone number: 800-4-UNIVEL Security patches are available from: Compuserve ftp from ftp.novell.com floppy from the Novell support folks ------------------------------------------------------------------------ NeXT Contact information for Next as follows: Technical Support: ask_next@next.com Phone number: 800.848.6398 Address: 900 Chesapeake Drive Redwood City, CA 94063 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ SCO Contact information for The Santa Cruz Operation (SCO): Send security related information to: security-alert@sco.com Security patches are issued on an as-needed basis and will be available at ftp.sco.com and its mirrors. When submitting information about a security problem, please include output of the following commands: uname -X swconfig hwconfig -h (if hardware-related) and as much detail about the problem as you can muster. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ SGI Contact information for SGI as follows: Send security related information to: security-alert@sgi.com If there is no response, try Dave Olson olson@anchor.esd.sgi.com Support line: 1-800-800-4SGI and ask what patches are available. There are some security patches on anonymous FTP sgi.com in directory sgi/IRIX4.0 (or sgi/IRIX5.0 if the system is IRIX5). Security patches are issued through your SGI sales office. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Sun Contact information for Sun as follows: email: security-alert@sun.com phone: 415-688-9081 Fax: 415-688-9101 postal: Sun Security Coordinator MS MPK2-04 2550 Garcia Avenue Mountain View, CA 94043-1100 For reporting security vulnerabilities and problems, Sun strongly recommends that you report problems to your local Answer Center and your representative computer security response team, such as CERT. In some cases your local Answer Center will accept a report of a security bug even if you do not have a support contract. An additional notification to the security-alert alias is suggested but should not be used as your primary vehicle for reporting a bug. Sun Security Bulletins Sun Security Bulletins are available free of charge as part of our Customer Warning System. It is not necessary to have a Sun support contract in order to receive them. To subscribe to this bulletin series, send mail to the address "security-alert@Sun.COM" with the subject "subscribe CWS your-mail-address" and a message body containing affiliation and contact information. To request that your name be removed from the mailing list, send mail to the same address with the subject "unsubscribe CWS your-mail-address". Do not include other requests or reports in a subscription message. Due to the volume of subscription requests Sun receives, Sun cannot guarantee to acknowledge requests. Please contact the security office if you wish to verify that your subscription request was received, or if you would like your bulletin delivered via postal mail or fax. Sun Security Bulletins are archived on ftp.uu.net (in the same directory as the patches) and on SunSolve. Please try these sources first before contacting the security office for old bulletins. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Other Resources ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CERT (Computer Emergency Response Team) The CERT (Computer Emergency Response Team). To report a vulnerability contact CERT at: E-mail: cert@cert.org Past advisories and other information related to computer security are available for anonymous FTP from cert.org (192.88.209.5). See the Security Resources FAQ for more information on CERT and vulnerability reporting forms. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CIAC (Computer Incident Advisory Capability) The CIAC (Computer Incident Advisory Capability) of DoE. To report a vulnerability, contact CIAC at voice: 510-422-8193 fax: 510-423-8002 stu-iii: 510-423-2604 or mail ciac@llnl.gov. Previous CIAC bulletins and other information is available via anonymous ftp from ciac.llnl.gov (ip address 128.115.51.53). See the Security Resources FAQ for more information on CIAC advisories and mailing lists. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Acknowledgements Thanks go to the following people for providing new or updated information to be included in this FAQ: Dave Millar for helping provide a portion of the information. Steve Cooper, spcooper@llnl.gov ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Copyright This paper is Copyright (c) 1994, 1995 by Christopher Klaus of Internet Security Systems, Inc. Permission is hereby granted to give away free copies electronically. You may distribute, transfer, or spread this paper electronically. You may not pretend that you wrote it. This copyright notice must be maintained in any copy made. If you wish to reprint the whole or any part of this paper in any other medium excluding electronic medium, please ask the author for permission. Disclaimer The information within this paper may change without notice. Use of this information constitutes acceptance for use in an AS IS condition. There are NO warranties with regard to this information. In no event shall the author be liable for any damages whatsoever arising out of or in connection with the use or spread of this information. Any use of this information is at the user's own risk. Address of Author Please send suggestions, updates, and comments to: Christopher Klaus <cklaus@iss.net> of Internet Security Systems, Inc. <iss@iss.net> -- Christopher William Klaus Voice: (404)441-2531. Fax: (404)441-2431 Internet Security Systems, Inc. Computer Security Consulting 2000 Miller Court West, Norcross, GA 30071