Highlights
Task:
Lab Objectives
Become familiar with SNORT as packet sniffer and intrusion detection system
Create custom rules in SNORT to detect various attacks such as ping scan and port scan
Test the custom rules and analyze the snort log files
SNORT Overview
Snort’s architecture consists of four basic components, the sniffer, preprocessor, detection engine and the alerts, as shown if Figure 1. The sniffer is a very useful tool, in operational mode it can be used as a stand-alone packet sniffer much like Wireshark or tcpdump; however, it’s main objective is to capture packets and forward them to the preprocessor. On arrival, the preprocessor checks the data for abnormalities such as IP fragmentation and sends it on to the detection engine. The detection engine extracts the data and checks it against a set of known rules, if the data within the packet matches the rule attributes it’s then transmitted to the alert processor. At this point, the alert processor either logs the alert or more importantly, notifies the administrator of the occurrence [1]. Although Snort is equipped with powerful features, its true strengths are concealed within the proficiency of custom rules.
MATERIALS AND SETUP
To complete this lab, you will need an attacker and victim/defender machine
Kali linux VM can be your attacker
Metasploitable VM or Windows XP vm or your own machine can be the victim/target.
Wireshark (Optional) – to observe packet flow
Feel free to create your own configurations, but describe that in your lab report.
LAB TASKS
Task 1: Use Snort as a Packet Sniffer.
Demonstrate how snort can be used as a packet sniffer.
On the command line type snort –vde and press ENTER. This command and options will run Snort as a Packet Sniffer
For this task, ping a different ip address and observe the snort output
Task 2: Run Snort as IDS to detect ping scans
Write custom rules to detect the ping scan, write configuration file, test the rule and check the logs
Task 3: Run Snort as IDS to detect port scans
Write custom rules to detect various types of port scans. Recall the nmap scans including SYN scan, FIN scan and XMAS scan
STEP 1: Use Nmap to launch a SYN scan attack, create a rule to detect the attack, test the rule and check the logs
STEP2: Use Nmap to launch a FIN scan attack, create a rule to detect the attack, test the rule and check the logs
In a FIN scan the attacker is searching for open ports using only the FIN flag. This is notifying the target that is wants to tear down a connection, even though no connection is present. Any packet not containing a SYN, RST or ACK will result in a returned RST if the port is closed and no response if the port is open.
STEP3: Use Nmap to launch a XMAS scan attack, create a rule to detect the attack, test the rule and check the logs
In an XMAS scan, the attacker is searching for open ports using the FIN, PSH and URG flags; As mentioned back in Step 2, any combination of these three flags will result in a returned RST if the port is closed and no response if the port is open.
Task 4: Write your own custom rule to detect ANY other attack on the victim machine. Demonstrate the attack and show how snort is capable of detecting this attack.
Task 5: Write a rule that will fire when you browse to facebook.com from the machine Snort is running on; it should look for any outbound TCP request to facebook.com and alert on it.
Task6: Answer the following questions
Q1: State how each of following real rules from the snort home page work:
i. alert icmp any any -> any any (msg:"ICMP Source Quench"; itype: 4; icode: 0;)
ii. alert tcp $EXTERNAL_NET any -> $HTTP_SERVERS 80 (msg:"WEB-CGI view-source access";flags: A+; content:"/view source?../../../../../../../etc/passwd"; nocase;reference:cve,CVE-1999-0174;)
Q2: Develop your own snort signature to capture DNS queries directed against the host the you choose to connect to via HTTPS. Make sure that your snort rule references the DNS data and not simply IP address of the server.
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