RE: Hidden Ports

From: Dimitri Bertolami (Dimitri_at_staf.pi.be)
Date: 02/06/04

  • Next message: Jamie Pratt: "Re: firewalls that can ssl ftp?"
    To: <security-basics@securityfocus.com>
    Date: Fri, 6 Feb 2004 20:50:50 +0100
    
    

    guys and galls,

    I'll explain a bit more about this one ..

    what most trojans nowadays use as technique is a verry basic, verry simple
    sniffer, once you have
    built your own sniffer you can set it to listen to a certain type of packet,
    ONLY if that type of packet is detected you can trigger just about anything
    you please.

    most hackers use small tricks that will force you to kill your system many
    times before you find the actual process,
    like renaming their backdoor to winmgnt.exe , lsass.exe , svchost.exe etc.
    so you'll have to kill your system
    many times before you can find the actual process to which it is bound. (if
    you're really lucky the coder of the
    backdoor used a function that allways requests the same process ID, (PID) so
    look for the same PID after rebooting,
    but any person with C++ skills can change the original code to fit it
    needs...
    so far for the part of backdoor, rootkits are completely different than a
    simple backdoor.
    the most basic backdoor = netcat: (nc.exe -L -d -p 55 -v -vv -e cmd.exe) and
    you have a ready to use telnet server.
    (cmd.exe is bound to port 55 in this case)
    but , everyone can connect to it, and do the same as what you can, if you
    want to check out one of the first backdoors
    with authentication method built in (and some other small things extra)
    check out winshell 5.0
    download :
    http://www.yanbing.org/software.htm
    info:
    http://www.megasecurity.org/trojans/w/winshell/Winshell5.0.html

    btw, if you want to test the "port connecting, use simple good old netcat:
    nc 10.0.0.1 20-25
    will try to connect from port 1 to 100 , and in this case

    C:\tools>nc 10.0.0.1 1-100
    220 Serv-U FTP Server v4.1 for WinSock ready...
    ^C

    it catches my FTP server on port 21 ;)

    this should get you started on how easy it actually is to accomplish what
    you want once you know why hackers use certain
    tools. there's not much "building of anything, it's just using tools to
    their limit, and if you need something else look
    for what you need in google.

    quote:
    -------------------------------------------
    >>>Some tools also look for
    >connections to ports in certain order (eg, the same host contacts port
    >80, port 22 and then port 443 within a few seconds). <<

    Right. This is called port knocking.
    -------------------------------------------
    if you want to test this particular thing out yourself , grab scanline from
    foundstone
    https://www.foundstone.com/index.htm?subnav=resources/navigation.htm&subcont
    ent=/resources/proddesc/scanline.htm

    that should allready scan for all the ports listed in your question in one
    simple command.

    quote:
    ------------------------------------------
    >Wouldn't you be able, in say, Windows 2000, to see the Process running
    which would be looking for this sequence?
    >

    Perhaps a less-well-designed trojan might actually open the ports, then
    start a timer when the first port is knocked. Given such tools as fport and
    (my favorite) openports, you would be able to see the process that had
    opened this combination of ports.
    -------------------------------------------

    as I said we're not talking about opening ports until a trigger sequence
    (however you like it) is activated in the "sniffer"
    part of the backdoor.

    quote: (david)
    -------------------------------------------
    Not necessarily. These tools are often part of a rootkit, which would
    naturally hide itself. In fact, they usually load as part of the OS
    kernel, and not as a process.
    -------------------------------------------
    http://www.megasecurity.org/trojans/h/hackerdefender/Hackerdefender0.21.html
    (text below taken from the site)
    Idea

    ----
    	Main idea of this program was to use API functions WriteProcessMemory
    and CreateRemoteThread to create a new thread in all running processes.
    New thread will rewrite some functions in system modules (mostly
    kernel32.dll)
    and inject fake code which will check API results and change this result
    in specific cases.
    	Program must be absolutely hidden for all others. Program installs
    hidden backdoors and register as hidden system service.
    --
    meaning ,  you really honestly don't see the 500 connections to port 21 on
    your hidden FTP Server, because according to
    your "rewritten" kernel there simply aren't any of these services or ports
    in use, you can consider a rootkit like an Evil
    MS patch (from hackers) MS patches the correct way, rootkits patch the wrong
    way. but a patch is a patch and windows won't
    recognise the patch as "not" being a part of it's own architecture once it's
    installed.
    any questions, feel free to ask..
    Cheers,
    Dimitri
    -----Original Message-----
    From: H Carvey [mailto:keydet89@yahoo.com]
    Sent: vrijdag 6 februari 2004 14:58
    To: security-basics@securityfocus.com
    Subject: Re: Hidden Ports
    In-Reply-To: <008701c3ebb4$8777ec90$2a067ece@dell16>
    >>>Some tools also look for
    >connections to ports in certain order (eg, the same host contacts port
    >80, port 22 and then port 443 within a few seconds).  <<
    Right.  This is called port knocking.
    >Wouldn't you be able, in say, Windows 2000,  to see the Process running
    which would be looking for this sequence?
    >
    I'd be interested to hear how you would go about doing this.  Yes, assuming
    there are no (DKOM-style, DLL injection, etc.) rootkits installed, you
    should be able to enumerate running processes.  But how would you go about
    locating the process that had hooked the IP stack in order to listen for
    that combination?  After all, assuming it were properly designed, you
    wouldn't have to actually open a port.  Perhaps you'd need to include the
    WinPcap drivers or something similar, but hooking the stack and looking for
    the right combinations of knocks (ie, "shave and a haircut") shouldn't be to
    awfully difficult.
    Perhaps a less-well-designed trojan might actually open the ports, then
    start a timer when the first port is knocked.  Given such tools as fport and
    (my favorite) openports, you would be able to see the process that had
    opened this combination of ports.
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  • Next message: Jamie Pratt: "Re: firewalls that can ssl ftp?"

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