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http://www.networkworld.com/news/2011/041211-hacker-exploit-firewalls.html?utm_medium=referral&utm_source=pulsenewsHacker 'handshake' hole found in common firewalls
NSS Labs tested Cisco, Check Point, Fortinet, Juniper, the Palo Alto Networks, and SonicWall firewalls
By Ellen Messmer, Network World
April 12, 2011 03:33 PM ET
Some of the most commonly-used firewalls are subject to a hacker exploit that lets an attacker trick a firewall and get into an internal network as a trusted IP connection.
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NSS Labs recently tested half a dozen network firewalls to evaluate security weaknesses, and all but one of them was found to be vulnerable to a type of attack called the "TCP Split Handshake Attack" that lets a hacker remotely fool the firewall into thinking an IP connection is a trusted one behind the firewall.
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Some of the most commonly-used firewalls are subject to a hacker exploit that lets an attacker trick a firewall and get into an internal network as a trusted IP connection.
NSS Labs recently tested half a dozen network firewalls to evaluate security weaknesses, and all but one of them was found to be vulnerable to a type of attack called the "TCP Split Handshake Attack" that lets a hacker remotely fool the firewall into thinking an IP connection is a trusted one behind the firewall.
"If the firewall thinks you're inside, the security policy it applies to you is an internal one, and you can run a scan to see where machines are," says Rick Moy, president of NSS Labs. An attacker can then pretty much run wild in the network because the firewall mistakenly considers the IP address as a trusted one coming from behind the firewall.
This week NSS Labs published its "Network Firewall 2011 Comparative Test Results" research paper about the findings. NSS Labs is a well-known product testing organization that evaluates a wide range of security gear, sometimes as vendor-sponsored comparative tests, sometimes as completely independent tests under its own determination. The Network Firewall 2011 Comparative Test published this week is in the latter category, where costs were assumed wholly by NSS Labs itself.
NSS Labs independently tested the Check Point Power-1 11065, the Cisco ASA 5585-40, the Fortinet Fortigate 3950, the Juniper SRX 5800, the Palo Alto Networks PA-4020, and the SonicWall NSA E8500.
Moy pointed out that vendors were generally reluctant to participate in the battery of tests that NSS Labs did and that in fact about half the firewall equipment in the tests was contributed directly by end-user customers, such as financial services firms, which supported the tests because they wanted to find out about possible vulnerabilities in their firewalls.
The NSS Labs report says, "Five of the six products allowed external attackers to bypass the firewall and become an internal 'trusted machine.'" The only firewall tested by NSS labs that didn't was the Check Point one.
Moy says the exploit used in the test is known as the "TCP Split Handshake," which begins during the point that the firewall and any connection is being initiated during the TCP "handshake" process to set up a connection. Moy says attack code in the wild has been known for about a year. It's '"an easy way for an attacker to become part of the network," he says. What's particularly insidious about it is that since it occurs at the handshake stage, they are unlikely to be logs and alerts associated with the attack, Moy says.
The vendors whose equipment did not pass the "TCP Split Handshake" security test are in varying stages of remediation, according to the report.
Cisco is said to be currently working with NSS Labs on this issue and "recommendations will be provided as soon as they are available."
"Fortinet does not currently provide their customers protection against the TCP Split handshake attack," the report says, but NSS Labs says Fortinet has advised the lab that one will be included in an upcoming release in May.
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