26th Sep 2002 [SBWID-5267]
COMMAND
Norton Personal Firewall 2002 is vulnerable to SYN/FIN scan
SYSTEMS AFFECTED
Norton Personal Firewall 2002
PROBLEM
Alfonso Fiore [http://www.secure-edge.com/] found following bug on
Norton Personal Firewall 2002 :
Norton Personal Firewall 2002 on Windows 2000 is vulnerable to SYN/FIN
scan (SYN/FIN/URG, SYN/FIN/PUSH, SYN/FIN/URG/PUSH are not detected as
well) also if you activate "detect portscan".
The windows machine answers the same way with or without NPF. open TCP
port answer (hping output):
len=46 ip=a.b.c.d sport=135 flags=SA DF seq=5 ttl=128 id=112 win=16616 rtt=0.8 ms
close TCP port answer (hping output):
len=46 ip=a.b.c.d sport=136 flags=RA seq=6 ttl=128 id=113 win=0 rtt=0.6 ms
This way, you can check which ports are listening and you don't get
blacklisted. When NPF detects a port scan, it filters all packets from
the source IP for the next 30 mins. By the way, I tried to understand
this feature: after some tests, I got the idea that NPF stops ONLY SYN
packets FROM the blacklisted IP. This means that you can STILL perform
a SYN/FIN scan while blacklisted and also that you can go on with an
established connection from a blacklisted IP. You just can't start a
new connection FROM the blacklisted machine (but you can start it from
the "protected" PC). I guess this way to implement a blacklist is
mainly for performances. Any comment?
Moreover, since you can't change the 30 mins default blacklist time,
this can help a lot in fingerprinting Norton Personal Firewall making
your IP blacklisted and then trying to send again SYN packets on an
open port after 30 mins.
In my probe test, I also tried to check the claim "block fragmented IP
Packets" in advanced options, attacking the windows box with the old
jolt2 (MS00-029 May 2000). Of course, the windows 2000 has NO patch or
SP which would prevent the attack to success. You might say a computer
should always be uptodate with patches, but this was a proof-of-concept
of a future undiscovered fragmented IP bug againts a claim of being
able to block fragments.
NPF is NOT able to protect my Windows 2000 against jolt2.
SOLUTION
Nothing yet.