Re: break in?

From: Paul Greene (techlists_at_comcast.net)
Date: 11/14/05

  • Next message: Laura A. Robinson: "RE: break in?" 
    Date: Sun, 13 Nov 2005 21:39:17 -0500
To: larobins@bellatlantic.net

    I'm starting to wonder if I got freaked out over nothing.

    The big thing that stood out initially was the printers appearing. I
    thought I'd inadvertantly opened a back door into our corporate network.
    If that's normal behaviour for a RDP client, then, whoop dee doo.

    Also, the IP addresses for the attempted outbound http and ftp
    connections (after I'd started blocking and logging them) were to Akamai
    Technologies and Speedera, an Akamai affiliate. It's annoying that
    marketing related info is trying to escape from my network, but probably
    not a big thing to worry about.

    I tried several of the sysinternals utilties suggested by another
    poster, checking for rootkits or other suspicious looking processes and
    didn't find anything.

    In the end I reformatted and reinstalled the domain controller again
    anyway, just in case.

    Thanks for all the tips and suggestions.

    Paul Greene

    Laura A. Robinson wrote:

    >Okay, a few things first:
    >
    >1. You say you saw lots of failed login attempts. Did you see any successful
    >ones?
    >2. The printers that appeared on your DC are normal. By default, the RDP
    >client will try to install the printers that are installed on the client
    >machine into the terminal session, as well.
    >3. Have you run netstat to see what's trying to connect to the ftp and web
    >sites? I'd recommend netstat -b -v so you can see the executables that
    >spawned the processes making the connections.
    >
    >Then let us know what you find. :-)
    >
    >Laura
    >
    >
    >
    >>-----Original Message-----
    >>From: Paul Greene [mailto:techlists@comcast.net]
    >>Sent: Saturday, November 12, 2005 12:19 AM
    >>To: focus-ms@securityfocus.com
    >>Subject: break in?
    >>
    >>Hello,
    >>
    >>I have a Win2K domain controller running on my home network
    >>that had Terminal Services enabled through my firewall so
    >>that I could access the box from my office at work. I had
    >>configured the firewall to only all TS access from the IP
    >>block of the company where I work. (the firewall is an
    >>openbsd box that also acts as the gateway to my ISP)
    >>
    >>Well, I went out on a road trip and allowed TS access from
    >>"any" so that I could access the DC from my hotel room, and
    >>then forgot to restrict access again when finished. Ooops!!
    >>Big mistake.
    >>
    >>I was looking through Event viewer troubleshooting another
    >>issue a few days ago, then noticed a whole bunch of failed
    >>administrator logins in the security logs. Oh, crap what
    >>happened now. I ran Symantec AV, Spybot search and destroy,
    >>and Adware and none of them found anything. I ran MS Update
    >>service and realized I was out of date on several patches
    >>(going back about 2 months worth of patches).
    >>
    >>Another ominous sign was that the DC had two printers
    >>configured that I use at the office, but I have never
    >>configured a printer for this DC. I deleted the printers, and
    >>they came right back.
    >>
    >>I wanted to see what was going on with the DC, so rather than
    >>wipe it clean and re-install, I locked the firewall down real
    >>tight and started logging everything to see if the DC was
    >>going to try to "phone home"
    >>somewhere. I'm only allowing outgoing http access to the MS
    >>Update site, and outgoing DNS queries (UDP port 53) because
    >>this is also the dns server for the network.
    >>
    >>More ominous signs. The server was trying a few times a day
    >>to make connection attempts to some outbound websites and ftp
    >>sites. Some of the IP addresses were located in Rumania and
    >>Poland. All connection attempts were getting blocked and logged.
    >>
    >>Based on these symptoms, can anyone tell me what happened? In
    >>particular, for educations sake, can anyone tell what the
    >>specific exploit that was used in this case, and possibly a
    >>reference where I can go analyze further what happened?
    >>
    >>I don't have anything especially valuable on this server, so
    >>I won't lose much by wiping it and starting over again. I
    >>think I've also locked it down enough now with firewall ACL's
    >>that some turkey isn't going to be stealing my bandwidth for
    >>some nefarious purpose either.
    >>
    >>Thanks in advance,
    >>
    >>Paul Greene
    >>
    >>--------------------------------------------------------------
    >>-------------
    >>--------------------------------------------------------------
    >>-------------
    >>
    >>
    >>
    >
    >
    >
    >

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