Re: snmp vulnerablities

From: H Carvey (keydet89@yahoo.com)
Date: 07/19/01 

Date: 19 Jul 2001 17:08:17 -0000
Message-ID: <20010719170817.256.qmail@securityfocus.com>
From: H Carvey <keydet89@yahoo.com>
To: pen-test@securityfocus.com
Subject: Re: snmp vulnerablities


> As for comments on protecting SNMPv1
with ACL's and obfuscated Community
> Strings, that is laughable at best. A better
solution is to run with SNMPv3
> using AuthPriv functionality, seems like
some of the popular management
> systems don't yet support v3 capabilities.

Well, I don't see why such a solution would be
laughable. From a business perspective, it
doesn't necessarily make sense to keep
heapinng layer after layer of 'stuff' on top of
the protocol.

Oddly enough, my post about treating SNMP
in isolation was rejected by the moderators,
who as yet have not responded to my queries
regarding this issue.

The issue as I see it is that folks are treating
security mechanism in general (SNMP is not a
security mechanism) in isolation. Yes, an
obfuscated community string in the UDP
packets is laughable in the face of a simple
sniffer. However, it your infrastructure
configuration allows for the undetected
installation of a sniffer, then you have more
things to be concerned with, other than
simply the 'safety' of your community strings.
If someone has a sniffer, why bother with
things like community strings at all, when the
admin passwords can be easily collected.

Properly configuring and monitoring your
entire infrastructure is what can allow things
like SNMP and TFTP to run on the network.
Network engineers too often say
that "security breaks stuff"...and they are
definitely correct, particularly when a
security 'expert' doesn't keep the business
objectives in mind.

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