Skip site navigation (1)Skip section navigation (2)
Date:      Wed, 26 Mar 2014 07:08:57 +0200
From:      Kimmo Paasiala <kpaasial@icloud.com>
To:        Olafur Gudmundsson <ogud@ogud.com>
Cc:        freebsd-security@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: NTP security hole CVE-2013-5211? (Gary Palmer)
Message-ID:  <FD8D10B1-9A78-4732-B379-718048D82FBF@icloud.com>
In-Reply-To: <EAD9B42E-3A77-4254-B9C6-4B0FAFE4F246@ogud.com>
References:  <mailman.89.1395748802.54679.freebsd-security@freebsd.org> <EAD9B42E-3A77-4254-B9C6-4B0FAFE4F246@ogud.com>

next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help

--Apple-Mail=_96A045FA-42E4-47B6-AD00-2F01A4CE7769
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
Content-Type: text/plain;
	charset=us-ascii


On 25.3.2014, at 15.48, Olafur Gudmundsson <ogud@ogud.com> wrote:

>=20
> On Mar 25, 2014, at 8:00 AM, freebsd-security-request@freebsd.org =
wrote:
>=20
>>=20
>> Message: 1
>> Date: Mon, 24 Mar 2014 11:02:08 -0400
>> From: Gary Palmer <gpalmer@freebsd.org>
>> To: Brett Glass <brett@lariat.org>
>> Cc: "freebsd-security@freebsd.org" <freebsd-security@freebsd.org>,
>> 	Remko Lodder <remko@freebsd.org>, "Ronald F. Guilmette"
>> 	<rfg@tristatelogic.com>
>> Subject: Re: NTP security hole CVE-2013-5211?
>> Message-ID: <20140324150208.GA5238@in-addr.com>
>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=3Dus-ascii
>>=20
>> On Fri, Mar 21, 2014 at 06:13:10PM -0600, Brett Glass wrote:
>>> At 03:28 PM 3/21/2014, Remko Lodder wrote:
>>>=20
>>>> Ofcourse the software should be well protected as well, and =
secteam@ did his
>>>> best to offer the best solution possible. Though as mentioned by =
Brett for
>>>> example we just cannot force the update of ntpd.conf on user =
machines because
>>>> every admin could have legitimate reasons for having a =
configuration in place
>>>> they decided to have. It's risky to change those things and =
especially enforce
>>>> them on running machines. Most of his ideas were in the advisory =
already
>>>> except for the 'disable monitor' part, which might be reason to =
discuss
>>>> whether that makes sense or not.
>>>=20
>>> I've suggested one other thing, and still think it would be a good =
idea to
>>> thwart attacks: that we compile ntpd to source outgoing queries from =
randomly
>>> selected ephemeral UDP ports rather than UDP port 123. (This was,=20
>>> in fact, done
>>> in earlier releases of FreeBSD and I'm unsure why it was changed.) =
This makes
>>> stateful firewalling less necessary and improves its performance if =
it is done.
>>=20
>>=20
>> Could you please explain how randomising the source port of NTP =
queries
>> would thwart NTP monitor amplification attacks?  The attack works =
because
>> the NTP control port on the server is always UDP/123, and I don't see =
how
>> changing the source port would fix that.  Unless I'm missing =
something, you'd
>> need to change the port the daemon accepts queries on, not the port =
it sources
>> outbound queries on.
>>=20
>> Thanks,
>>=20
>> Gary
>=20
> There are three problems=20
> 0. NTP can be tricked to give out big answer to forged addresses.=20
> 1. Some NTP servers listen on port 123 all address even when only =
expecting to providing service on=20
> "internal addresses",
> 2. NTP servers are easily discoverable  due to the listening on fixed =
port. =20
>=20
> Moving the servers of port 123 will make the search for servers harder =
but intrusion detection systems=20
> will need to be modified to expect NTP traffic on any port.=20
>=20
> IF and ONLY if people are willing to change how NTP servers are =
discovered in DNS then servers
> can listen on any port.=20
> Instead of loping up "A/AAAA" record for a name, the service discovery =
should look up SRV record as
> that includes port number on each server. Even if everyone agrees to =
make this change=20
> there still has to be "temporarily" backwards hack to allow old =
software to find the service.=20
> (In the mail world MX (SRV equivalent) use is not universal after over =
25 years).=20
>=20
> So while it is possible to move NTP servers off port 123 I do not =
think it is worth the effort.=20
>=20
> 	Olafur
>=20
>=20
I believe Gary was talking about changing the control/status port and =
not the actual service port (UDP 123). That should be doable without =
breaking compatibility with existing NTP tools.

-Kimmo

--Apple-Mail=_96A045FA-42E4-47B6-AD00-2F01A4CE7769
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Content-Disposition: attachment;
	filename=signature.asc
Content-Type: application/pgp-signature;
	name=signature.asc
Content-Description: Message signed with OpenPGP using GPGMail

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----

iQEcBAEBAgAGBQJTMmDuAAoJEFvLZC0FWRVpqYgIAKDVzHYimNLQRz5vUfbKphM/
M8PAU6gsc5d30O7td6oRqty5Z3nRT8byHCnEIJrDlDLUBK5YQ+GJdlnj06Kpysnb
Tf/CbB5IcCdszhextMp2ahS4JtDJ7ubHbGq6CXp34dJXHcueLjpqAUhIOVya7r9F
bmdlHGsDnmi59dIz3TJbeWbHmnkDyLWsdFFeoGSl9TRKtcTDlCLHLI7bekd5CEah
/kx/iN756g7F3sEqPUXk+SQSfYeOwhp4Urhmipa6eqSO0m0R16VBW8OYFYM84n0N
M54WhAz3PYXlZHYe086h/HZecwdyAVh6O23Km9Mm89LPzqL+BXC8pEQKJvBv2S0=
=P4c/
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

--Apple-Mail=_96A045FA-42E4-47B6-AD00-2F01A4CE7769--



Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?FD8D10B1-9A78-4732-B379-718048D82FBF>