Re: Router/Switches and viruses

From: Jason Haar (Jason.Haar_at_trimble.co.nz)
Date: 05/06/05

  • Next message: Chris Byrd: "Re: Router/Switches and viruses" 
    Date: Fri, 06 May 2005 15:58:44 +1200
To: focus-ids@securityfocus.com

    Seek Knowledge wrote:

    >Does anyone have any first-hand experience with a
    >single infected desktop machine (or windows server for
    >that matter) taking out a LAN switch? Would anyone
    >have any stories from the trenches of an infected
    >machine causing a directly connected router to stop
    >functioning?
    >
    >
    >

    Well it's pretty easy.

    a> infect a 100Mb Ethernet PC with SQL SLAMMER
    b> watch SLAMMER try to infect Internet hosts at a rate of 10,000/sec
    c> watch 1.5Mbs Internet link DIE

    It's not really the routers fault - but you could certainly say a
    virus/trojan "killed" a router.

    >If so, what could be done to prevent such an outage?
    >What IDS/IPS strategy might one implement to prevent
    >and or at least detect such an event?
    >
    >
    >

    MUCH Bigger pipes? ;-)

    Seriously tho, NIDS can help here. But it means running NIDS on your
    Internal network instead of the more traditional monitoring your
    DMZes/etc. If you monitor all WAN traffic, you can pick up such things -
    and still have a project that you can possibly get the funding for.
    (i.e. saying you want to have NIDS in your Core 10Gb LAN switches is an
    order of magnitude more expensive than wanting to monitor your ~T1/E1
    WAN links). 

    -- 
Cheers
Jason Haar
Information Security Manager, Trimble Navigation Ltd.
Phone: +64 3 9635 377 Fax: +64 3 9635 417
PGP Fingerprint: 7A2E 0407 C9A6 CAF6 2B9F 8422 C063 5EBB FE1D 66D1
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