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Spoofing attacks

  • Entails changing a computer's identity
  • Allow the bypassing of access control lists on servers or routers
  • Allows hiding a device on network by impersonating another network device / system.

IP address spoofing​

  • Used most commonly in DDoS attacks.
  • Helps with overcoming authentication based on IP addresses
    • Usually in corporate networks where trust between devices exists
    • E.g. accessing intranet without any password.
  • ❗ The response is sent to the spoofed IP address instead of the spoofer.

IP address spoofing countermeasures​

  • Packet filtering by a gateway
    • Ingress: block packets from outside of the network having an IP address within the network.
    • Egress: block outgoing packets from inside with a source address that is not inside
  • 💡 Design network protocols and services so that they do not rely on the source IP address for authentication.
  • Sequence number
    • Used by upper layer TCP
    • Negotiated to ensure that arriving packets are part of an established connection.
    • 📝 Must be guessed in order to hijack the connection

MAC spoofing​

MAC spoofing use-cases​

  • New hardware for existing Internet Service Providers (ISP) where ISP charges per device.
  • Fulfilling software requirements where one software can only be installed on a single device.
  • Identity masking for pushing responsibility for other users.
  • MAC address randomization: Implemented in Android, Linux, iOS, and Windows to prevent third parties from using the MAC address to track devices

MAC spoofing attack​

  • Flow
    1. Attacker sniffs the network for MAC addresses of legitimate users
    2. Spoofs one of those addresses
    3. The attacker receives the traffic intended for that user
  • Effective against MAC filtering
  • E.g. using ifconfig
    1. ifconfig to get name of network interface e.g. eth0
    2. ifconfig eth0 down to deactivate it to be able to change it (will lose connection)
    3. ifconfig eth0 hw ether 88:88:88:88:88:88 to change the MAC address
    4. ifconfig eth0 up to change the MAC address
  • E.g. using macchanger
    • -r to get a random MAC address e.g. macchanger -r eth0
    • -m set specify MAC address manually to pretend to be someone else

STP spoofing​

  • STP: Spanning tree protocol
    • Layer 2 link management protocol
    • Provides path redundancy while preventing loops in the network
  • Allows intercepting traffic when attacker emulates a device with a (lower) root switch identifier

STP spoofing attack​

  • Also known as STP manipulation attack, STP attack or STP root role attack.
  • Flow
    1. Attacker introduces a rogue switch
    2. Switch advertises superior BPDUs to force a STP recalculation
      • BPDU = Bridge Protocol Data Units (BPDUs)
        • Frames that contain information about STP that's between exchanged switches
    3. Rouge router becomes elected as root switch
      • All the traffic will cross this switch giving the attacker possibility to sniff all traffic in the company
    • STP manipulation attack illustration
  • Allows for
    • DoS attacks
      • Recalculation of STP have interruption on the system as the root bridge changes
      • Just sending BPDU messages would be enough as becoming root is not needed.
    • MITM attacks
      • Also known as dual-homing (dual-homed)
      • Attacker uses two interfaces, one to win the root other to send data to the attacker.
      • 📝 Attacker can configure one of the switch ports as a SPAN port to receive copy of the traffic.
  • Mitigations
    • Enable Root Guard to not forward traffic to port with superior BPDUs
    • Enable BPDU Guard to enforce the STP domain borders

IRDP spoofing​

  • IRDP: ICMP Router Discovery Protocol
    • Protocol for computer hosts to discover routers on their IPv4 local area network.
    • ICMP router discovery messages are called "Router Advertisements" or "Router Solicitations"
  • Vulnerable as it does not have any validation
  • Attacker needs to be in the same network as the victim.
  • Attacker adds bad route entries into a victim's routing table redirecting victim traffic to malicious address.
  • Allows
    • Passive sniffing through rerouting victim machine to attacker machine
    • Man-in-the-middle where attacker acts as proxy
    • DoS by flooding wrong entries
  • Countermeasures
    • Disable IRDP
    • Use digital signatures
    • Block all type 9 and type 10 ICMP packets.