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You are here: Home arrow Forum arrow Ethical Hacking Discussions and Related Certificationsarrow Network Pen Testingarrow EnGarde Secure Linux
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January 08, 2009, 07:26:45 AM *
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Author Topic: EnGarde Secure Linux  (Read 1852 times)
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eth3real
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« on: March 26, 2008, 11:31:51 PM »

I set up my home server with EnGarde Secure Linux. I set up an SSH server on it, and I was curious about the results of an Nmap scan on this server.

Code:
#sudo nmap -sV -p22 server

Starting Nmap 4.11 ( http://www.insecure.org/nmap/ ) at 2008-03-27 00:18 EDT
Interesting ports on server:
PORT   STATE SERVICE VERSION
22/tcp open  ssh     OpenSSH 4.7 (protocol 1.99)

Nmap finished: 1 IP address (1 host up) scanned in 0.827 seconds

Now, I have seen SSH servers that are configured to use protocol 1.0, which is vulnerable to the CRC-32 vulnerability...
I have also seen SSH servers that are configured to use protocol 2.0.
But, I haven't seen SSH 1.99.

It accepts connections from both protocols.
Any thoughts? Is this something that I should be concerned about, or is it safe?
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Jess Hires
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EmanoN
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« Reply #1 on: March 27, 2008, 09:35:18 PM »

Your question is if this is secure?  Well, first of all your nmap scan was to limited since you were just looking for –p 22, but I assume you did this way knowing that was the only service running on your server and just wanted to display your results. A true scan will include all 65535 tcp and upd ports and it should be done remotely so a rootkit can’t mess with the accuracy of your output.  It seems like you did the right thing by checking available exploits for the service. So you didn’t find any published exploits for that service does that mean you are safe? No, you are not 100% safe.  Just because someone can’t find a published exploit or it’s not in the beloved script kiddie tool metasploit doesn’t mean one doesn’t exist. Remember there are exploits being developed by sophisticated hackers in the underground that the “ethical” community is not aware of.  On the other hand the exploits usually developed by the white hat community are usually revealed quickly because the developer is so eager to get his 10 seconds of glory in the security field. Not always, and sometimes they let the vender know ahead of time so they can make a patch. Those kind of exploits have value for about a month, if even that, then they are only good for low hanging fruit that never gets patched.
 
Now that doesn’t mean you need to stay up late at night worrying because if your server is low profile, more than likely you wont get attacked by such an attack, because unknown exploits are developed and traded by a small group of “leet” hackers and not the huge sea of script kiddies that seem to be getting larger out there even as I type. Hackers of a high caliber usually have bigger fish to fry. That’s not to say one wouldnt want to use your server to launch a more important attack from. Ok so what can you do? Well, you still need to configure firewall well and also make sure your IDS has the latest rules. Harden your OS so that a buffer overflow is difficult to occur even with a vulnerable service. There are some decent apps out there for this.  At this point you will be 99% secure because if you are a low value target, no hacker is going to waste a lot time trying to own you just to make you into a zombie when there are so many easier targets out there. Hey 99% is good odds!
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eth3real
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« Reply #2 on: March 27, 2008, 10:07:31 PM »

Thanks for the reply! I suppose I should have been a bit more specific.

The Nmap scan was done remotely, and I did start with a full scan, but I was only curious about the results of the SSH server.

I know that nothing is really ever 100% secure, but I was really only talking about known exploits, not zero-day exploits, or vulnerabilities that are not yet public or not yet known.

To make it very clear:
Has anyone seen a result of Protocol 1.99 for an SSH server?

Of course, I am not really worried about someone targeting my home servers specifically, I know that is highly improbable.
I was really just asking because digital security is becoming a huge hobby for me. Smiley

On a side note, almost immediately after posting that, I changed the ssh_config file to only allow protocol 2.0. Wink
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Jess Hires
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« Reply #3 on: March 28, 2008, 12:27:33 AM »

Any thoughts? Is this something that I should be concerned about, or is it safe?

I have found that 1.99 is hackable in certain environments. Its good you disallowed it.
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shawal
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« Reply #4 on: March 28, 2008, 02:09:03 AM »

Eth3real,
you would expect the default configuration of EnGarde Linux to be at least secure enough! unless it is out of date, no updates or best operating procedures applied.

on the other hand we need to be careful, when it comes to exploits they are in general are targeting certain ssh release versions, when it comes to ssh protocols ssh-1 is weaker, and could be explited by MITM attacks, while ssh-2 there is no know MITM publicly available yet. nmap reproting the protocol as 1.99 is basicaly telling you what you have found already, that you have both ssh-2, and ssh-1 enabled, and worst you have drop back to ssh-1 enabled if the other side cann't use ssh-2.

EmanoN,

nice description about the blackhat/whitehat exploits process  Grin however what kind of risks you saw in 1.99?
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RHCE, GIAC GCIH.
BillV
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« Reply #5 on: March 28, 2008, 07:41:37 AM »

Nice catch, eth3real. I guess I never noticed that in the past few years I've been using EnGarde. I don't have SSH open on the external side, so something like this wouldn't show up in any scans. Thanks for posting that.
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dean
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« Reply #6 on: March 28, 2008, 08:50:38 AM »

As shawal said, when the protocol is displayed as 1.99 all this means is that you are running 2.0 with drop back to 1.x enabled. In most current implementations this is v1.5.

So at this point you'd be vulnerable to the CRC32 Compensation Attack Detector vulnerability/exploit in the  1.x protocols.

Enamon, are you referring to attacks that take advantage of SSH 2.0 implementations configured to drop back or are you referring to attacks against the SSH 2.0 protocol itself. If so I would be curious to hear more details.

A quick search of the OSVDB revealed some DoS but no remote exploits then again I just glanced at it and may be wrong.

http://osvdb.org/search?request=ssh

dean
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eth3real
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« Reply #7 on: March 28, 2008, 01:31:06 PM »

Thanks for the great replies!

I'm glad I helped other people realize that EnGarde Secure Linux will use SSH 2.0 and fallback to SSH 1.0 by default.

Grin
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Jess Hires
MCP, C|EH
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