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SECURITY(7)		 Miscellaneous Information Manual	     SECURITY(7)

NAME
     security -- introduction to security under FreeBSD

DESCRIPTION
     Security  is a function that begins and ends with the system administrator.
     While all BSD multi-user systems have some inherent security,  the  job  of
     building  and  maintaining  additional  security  mechanisms  to keep users
     "honest" is probably one of the single largest undertakings of  the  sysad-
     min.   Machines  are only as secure as you make them, and security concerns
     are ever competing with the human necessity for convenience.  Unix systems,
     in general, are capable of running a huge number of simultaneous  processes
     and many of these processes operate as servers -- meaning that external en-
     tities  can  connect  and	talk to them.  As yesterday's mini-computers and
     mainframes become today's desktops, and as computers become  networked  and
     internetworked, security becomes an ever bigger issue.

     Security  is  best implemented through a layered onion approach.  In a nut-
     shell, what you want to do is to create as many layers of security  as  are
     convenient and then carefully monitor the system for intrusions.

     System security also pertains to dealing with various forms of attacks, in-
     cluding  attacks  that attempt to crash or otherwise make a system unusable
     but do not attempt to break root.	Security concerns can be split	up  into
     several categories:

	   1.	Denial of Service attacks (DoS)

	   2.	User account compromises

	   3.	Root compromise through accessible servers

	   4.	Root compromise via user accounts

	   5.	Backdoor creation

     A denial of service attack is an action that deprives the machine of needed
     resources.   Typically, DoS attacks are brute-force mechanisms that attempt
     to crash or otherwise make a machine unusable by overwhelming  its  servers
     or  network  stack.  Some DoS attacks try to take advantages of bugs in the
     networking stack to crash a machine with a single packet.	The  latter  can
     only  be fixed by applying a bug fix to the kernel.  Attacks on servers can
     often be fixed by properly specifying options to limit the load the servers
     incur on the system under adverse conditions.  Brute-force network  attacks
     are  harder  to deal with.  A spoofed-packet attack, for example, is nearly
     impossible to stop short of cutting your system off from the Internet.   It
     may not be able to take your machine down, but it can fill up your Internet
     pipe.

     A	user  account  compromise  is  even more common than a DoS attack.  Many
     sysadmins still run standard telnetd(8), rlogind(8), rshd(8),  and  ftpd(8)
     servers  on their machines.  These servers, by default, do not operate over
     encrypted connections.  The result is that if you have  any  moderate-sized
     user base, one or more of your users logging into your system from a remote
     location  (which  is the most common and convenient way to log in to a sys-
     tem) will have his or her password sniffed.  The attentive system	adminis-
     trator  will  analyze  his remote access logs looking for suspicious source
     addresses even for successful logins.

     One must always assume that once an attacker has access to a user	account,
     the  attacker  can  break root.  However, the reality is that in a well se-
     cured and maintained system, access to a user account does not  necessarily
     give  the	attacker  access  to root.  The distinction is important because
     without access to root the attacker cannot generally hide	his  tracks  and
     may, at best, be able to do nothing more than mess with the user's files or
     crash  the machine.  User account compromises are very common because users
     tend not to take the precautions that sysadmins take.

     System administrators must keep in mind that  there  are  potentially  many
     ways  to break root on a machine.	The attacker may know the root password,
     the attacker may find a bug in a root-run server and be able to break  root
     over a network connection to that server, or the attacker may know of a bug
     in  an SUID-root program that allows the attacker to break root once he has
     broken into a user's account.  If an attacker has found a way to break root
     on a machine, the attacker may not have a need to install a backdoor.  Many
     of the root holes found and closed to date involve a considerable amount of
     work by the attacker to clean up after himself, so most  attackers  do  in-
     stall  backdoors.	 This gives you a convenient way to detect the attacker.
     Making it impossible for an attacker to install a backdoor may actually  be
     detrimental to your security because it will not close off the hole the at-
     tacker used to break in originally.

     Security  remedies should always be implemented with a multi-layered "onion
     peel" approach and can be categorized as follows:

	   1.	Securing root and staff accounts

	   2.	Securing root -- root-run servers and SUID/SGID binaries

	   3.	Securing user accounts

	   4.	Securing the password file

	   5.	Securing the kernel core, raw devices, and file systems

	   6.	Quick detection of inappropriate changes made to the system

	   7.	Paranoia

SECURING THE ROOT ACCOUNT AND SECURING STAFF ACCOUNTS
     Do not bother securing staff accounts if you have not secured the root  ac-
     count.   Most  systems  have  a password assigned to the root account.  The
     first thing you do is assume that the password is always compromised.  This
     does not mean that you should remove the password.  The password is  almost
     always  necessary	for console access to the machine.  What it does mean is
     that you should not make it possible to use the  password	outside  of  the
     console or possibly even with a su(1) utility.  For example, make sure that
     your  PTYs  are specified as being "insecure" in the /etc/ttys file so that
     direct root logins via telnet(1) or rlogin(1)  are  disallowed.   If  using
     other login services such as sshd(8), make sure that direct root logins are
     disabled  there  as well.	Consider every access method -- services such as
     ftp(1) often fall through the cracks.  Direct root logins	should	only  be
     allowed via the system console.

     Of  course, as a sysadmin you have to be able to get to root, so we open up
     a few holes.  But we make sure these holes require additional password ver-
     ification to operate.  One way to make root accessible is to add  appropri-
     ate staff accounts to the "wheel" group (in /etc/group).  The staff members
     placed  in  the wheel group are allowed to su(1) to root.	You should never
     give staff members native wheel access by putting them in the  wheel  group
     in  their	password  entry.   Staff  accounts should be placed in a "staff"
     group, and then added to the wheel group via  the	/etc/group  file.   Only
     those  staff members who actually need to have root access should be placed
     in the wheel group.  It is also  possible,  when  using  an  authentication
     method  such  as  Kerberos, to use Kerberos's .k5login file in the root ac-
     count to allow a ksu(1) to root without having to place anyone  at  all  in
     the wheel group.  This may be the better solution since the wheel mechanism
     still  allows  an intruder to break root if the intruder has gotten hold of
     your password file and can break into a staff account.   While  having  the
     wheel mechanism is better than having nothing at all, it is not necessarily
     the safest option.

     An indirect way to secure the root account is to secure your staff accounts
     by using an alternative login access method and *'ing out the crypted pass-
     word for the staff accounts.  This way an intruder may be able to steal the
     password  file  but  will	not  be able to break into any staff accounts or
     root, even if root has a crypted password associated with it (assuming,  of
     course,  that  you have limited root access to the console).  Staff members
     get into their staff accounts through a secure login mechanism such as ker-
     beros(8) or ssh(1) using a private/public key pair.  When you use something
     like Kerberos you generally must secure the machines which run the Kerberos
     servers and your desktop workstation.  When you use  a  public/private  key
     pair  with  SSH,  you  must generally secure the machine you are logging in
     from (typically your workstation), but you can also add an additional layer
     of protection to the key pair by password protecting the keypair  when  you
     create  it with ssh-keygen(1).  Being able to *-out the passwords for staff
     accounts also guarantees that staff members can only log in through  secure
     access  methods that you have set up.  You can thus force all staff members
     to use secure, encrypted connections for all their sessions which closes an
     important hole used by many intruders: that of sniffing the network from an
     unrelated, less secure machine.

     The more indirect security mechanisms also assume that you are  logging  in
     from  a more restrictive server to a less restrictive server.  For example,
     if your main box is running all sorts of servers, your  workstation  should
     not  be running any.  In order for your workstation to be reasonably secure
     you should run as few servers as possible, up to and including  no  servers
     at all, and you should run a password-protected screen blanker.  Of course,
     given  physical  access to a workstation, an attacker can break any sort of
     security you put on it.  This is definitely a problem that you should  con-
     sider  but  you  should  also  consider  the fact that the vast majority of
     break-ins occur remotely, over a network, from people who do not have phys-
     ical access to your workstation or servers.

     Using something like Kerberos also gives you  the	ability  to  disable  or
     change  the  password  for a staff account in one place and have it immedi-
     ately affect all the machines the staff member may have an account on.   If
     a	staff member's account gets compromised, the ability to instantly change
     his password on all machines should not be underrated.  With discrete pass-
     words, changing a password on N machines can be a mess.  You can  also  im-
     pose  re-passwording  restrictions  with  Kerberos: not only can a Kerberos
     ticket be made to timeout after a while, but the Kerberos	system	can  re-
     quire  that  the  user choose a new password after a certain period of time
     (say, once a month).

SECURING ROOT -- ROOT-RUN SERVERS AND SUID/SGID BINARIES
     The prudent sysadmin only runs the servers he needs to, no more,  no  less.
     Be  aware that third party servers are often the most bug-prone.  For exam-
     ple, running an old version of imapd(8) or popper(8)(ports/mail/popper)  is
     like  giving  a universal root ticket out to the entire world.  Never run a
     server that you have not checked out carefully.  Many servers do  not  need
     to  be  run  as root.  For example, the talkd(8), comsat(8), and fingerd(8)
     daemons can be run in special user "sandboxes".  A sandbox is  not  perfect
     unless you go to a large amount of trouble, but the onion approach to secu-
     rity  still stands: if someone is able to break in through a server running
     in a sandbox, they still have to break out of the sandbox.  The more layers
     the attacker must break through, the lower the likelihood of  his	success.
     Root  holes have historically been found in virtually every server ever run
     as root, including basic system servers.  If  you	are  running  a  machine
     through  which  people  only  log	in via sshd(8) and never log in via tel-
     netd(8), rshd(8), or rlogind(8), then turn off those services!

     FreeBSD now defaults to running talkd(8), comsat(8), and  fingerd(8)  in  a
     sandbox.  Another program which may be a candidate for running in a sandbox
     is  named(8).   The default rc.conf includes the arguments necessary to run
     named(8) in a sandbox in a commented-out form.  Depending	on  whether  you
     are  installing  a  new system or upgrading an existing system, the special
     user accounts used by these sandboxes may not be  installed.   The  prudent
     sysadmin would research and implement sandboxes for servers whenever possi-
     ble.

     There are a number of other servers that typically do not run in sandboxes:
     sendmail(8),  popper(8), imapd(8), ftpd(8), and others.  There are alterna-
     tives to some of these, but installing them may require more work than  you
     are willing to put (the convenience factor strikes again).  You may have to
     run  these servers as root and rely on other mechanisms to detect break-ins
     that might occur through them.

     The other big potential root hole in a system are the  SUID-root  and  SGID
     binaries  installed  on  the  system.   Most  of  these  binaries,  such as
     rlogin(1), reside in /bin, /sbin, /usr/bin, or /usr/sbin.	While nothing is
     100% safe, the system-default SUID and SGID binaries can be considered rea-
     sonably safe.  Still, root holes are occasionally found in these  binaries.
     A	root  hole was found in Xlib in 1998 that made xterm(1)(ports/x11/xterm)
     (which is typically SUID) vulnerable.  It is better to be safe  than  sorry
     and the prudent sysadmin will restrict SUID binaries that only staff should
     run  to  a special group that only staff can access, and get rid of ("chmod
     000") any SUID binaries that nobody uses.	A server with no display  gener-
     ally does not need an xterm(1) binary.  SGID binaries can be almost as dan-
     gerous.  If an intruder can break an SGID-kmem binary the intruder might be
     able to read /dev/kmem and thus read the crypted password file, potentially
     compromising  any passworded account.  Alternatively an intruder who breaks
     group "kmem" can monitor keystrokes sent through PTYs, including PTYs  used
     by  users	who  log in through secure methods.  An intruder that breaks the
     "tty" group can write to almost any user's TTY.  If a  user  is  running  a
     terminal  program	or  emulator with a keyboard-simulation feature, the in-
     truder can potentially generate a data stream that causes the user's termi-
     nal to echo a command, which is then run as that user.

SECURING USER ACCOUNTS
     User accounts are usually the most difficult to secure.  While you can  im-
     pose draconian access restrictions on your staff and *-out their passwords,
     you may not be able to do so with any general user accounts you might have.
     If  you  do have sufficient control then you may win out and be able to se-
     cure the user accounts properly.  If not, you simply have to be more  vigi-
     lant  in  your  monitoring  of those accounts.  Use of SSH and Kerberos for
     user accounts is more problematic due to the extra administration and tech-
     nical support required, but still	a  very  good  solution  compared  to  a
     crypted password file.

SECURING THE PASSWORD FILE
     The only sure fire way is to *-out as many passwords as you can and use SSH
     or Kerberos for access to those accounts.	Even though the crypted password
     file (/etc/spwd.db) can only be read by root, it may be possible for an in-
     truder  to  obtain read access to that file even if the attacker cannot ob-
     tain root-write access.

     Your security scripts should always check for and	report	changes  to  the
     password file (see "CHECKING FILE INTEGRITY" below).

SECURING THE KERNEL CORE, RAW DEVICES, AND FILE SYSTEMS
     If  an  attacker  breaks  root he can do just about anything, but there are
     certain conveniences.  For example,  most	modern	kernels  have  a  packet
     sniffing device driver built in.  Under FreeBSD it is called the bpf(4) de-
     vice.   An intruder will commonly attempt to run a packet sniffer on a com-
     promised machine.	You do not need to give the intruder the capability  and
     most systems should not have the bpf(4) device compiled in.

     But  even	if  you  turn off the bpf(4) device, you still have /dev/mem and
     /dev/kmem to worry about.	For that matter, the intruder can still write to
     raw disk devices.	Also, there is another kernel feature called the  module
     loader,  kldload(8).   An enterprising intruder can use a KLD module to in-
     stall his own bpf(4) device or other sniffing device on a	running  kernel.
     To  avoid	these  problems  you have to run the kernel at a higher security
     level, at least level 1.  The security level can be set with a sysctl(8) on
     the kern.securelevel variable.  Once you have set the security level to  1,
     write  access  to	raw devices will be denied and special chflags(1) flags,
     such as schg, will be enforced.  You must also ensure that the schg flag is
     set on critical startup binaries, directories, and script files  --  every-
     thing  that gets run up to the point where the security level is set.  This
     might be overdoing it, and upgrading the system is much more difficult when
     you operate at a higher security level.  You may  compromise  and	run  the
     system  at a higher security level but not set the schg flag for every sys-
     tem file and directory under the sun.  Another  possibility  is  to  simply
     mount / and /usr read-only.  It should be noted that being too draconian in
     what  you	attempt to protect may prevent the all-important detection of an
     intrusion.

     The kernel runs  with  five  different  security  levels.	 Any  super-user
     process  can  raise  the  level, but no process can lower it.  The security
     levels are:

     -1    Permanently insecure mode - always run the system in  insecure  mode.
	   This is the default initial value.

     0	   Insecure  mode  -  immutable and append-only flags may be turned off.
	   All devices may be read or written subject to their permissions.

     1	   Secure mode - the system immutable and system append-only  flags  may
	   not	be  turned  off;  disks  for  mounted file systems, /dev/mem and
	   /dev/kmem may not be opened for writing; /dev/io  (if  your	platform
	   has it) may not be opened at all; kernel modules (see kld(4)) may not
	   be loaded or unloaded.

     2	   Highly  secure  mode  -  same  as  secure mode, plus disks may not be
	   opened for writing (except by mount(2)) whether mounted or not.  This
	   level precludes tampering with file systems by unmounting  them,  but
	   also inhibits running newfs(8) while the system is multi-user.

	   In addition, kernel time changes are restricted to less than or equal
	   to  one  second.   Attempts to change the time by more than this will
	   log the message "Time adjustment clamped to +1 second".

     3	   Network secure mode - same as highly secure mode, plus IP packet fil-
	   ter rules (see ipfw(8), ipfirewall(4) and pfctl(8)) cannot be changed
	   and dummynet(4) or pf(4) configuration cannot be adjusted.

     The  security  level  can	be  configured	with  variables  documented   in
     rc.conf(5).

CHECKING FILE INTEGRITY: BINARIES, CONFIG FILES, ETC
     When  it comes right down to it, you can only protect your core system con-
     figuration and control files so much before the  convenience  factor  rears
     its  ugly	head.  For example, using chflags(1) to set the schg bit on most
     of the files in / and /usr is probably counterproductive because  while  it
     may  protect  the files, it also closes a detection window.  The last layer
     of your security onion is perhaps the most  important  --	detection.   The
     rest  of your security is pretty much useless (or, worse, presents you with
     a false sense of safety) if you cannot detect potential  incursions.   Half
     the  job  of the onion is to slow down the attacker rather than stop him in
     order to give the detection layer a chance to catch him in the act.

     The best way to detect an incursion is to look for  modified,  missing,  or
     unexpected  files.  The best way to look for modified files is from another
     (often centralized) limited-access system.  Writing your  security  scripts
     on  the  extra-secure  limited-access system makes them mostly invisible to
     potential attackers, and this is important.  In order to take  maximum  ad-
     vantage  you  generally have to give the limited-access box significant ac-
     cess to the other machines in the business, usually either by doing a read-
     only NFS export of the other machines to the limited-access box, or by set-
     ting up SSH keypairs to allow the limit-access box to SSH to the other  ma-
     chines.  Except for its network traffic, NFS is the least visible method --
     allowing you to monitor the file systems on each client box virtually unde-
     tected.   If  your  limited-access  server is connected to the client boxes
     through a switch, the NFS method is often the better choice.  If your  lim-
     ited-access  server  is  connected  to  the  client  boxes through a hub or
     through several layers of routing, the NFS method may be too insecure (net-
     work-wise) and using SSH may be the better choice even with the audit-trail
     tracks that SSH lays.

     Once you give a limit-access box at least read access to the client systems
     it is supposed to monitor, you must write scripts to do the actual monitor-
     ing.  Given an NFS mount, you can write scripts out of simple system utili-
     ties such as find(1) and md5(1).  It  is  best  to  physically  md5(1)  the
     client-box  files boxes at least once a day, and to test control files such
     as those found in /etc and /usr/local/etc even more often.  When mismatches
     are found relative to the base MD5 information the  limited-access  machine
     knows  is valid, it should scream at a sysadmin to go check it out.  A good
     security script will also check for inappropriate SUID binaries and for new
     or deleted files on system partitions such as / and /usr.

     When using SSH rather than NFS, writing the security script  is  much  more
     difficult.  You essentially have to scp(1) the scripts to the client box in
     order  to	run  them,  making them visible, and for safety you also need to
     scp(1) the binaries (such as find(1)) that those scripts use.  The  sshd(8)
     daemon on the client box may already be compromised.  All in all, using SSH
     may  be  necessary  when  running over unsecure links, but it is also a lot
     harder to deal with.

     A good security script will also check for changes to user and  staff  mem-
     bers access configuration files: .rhosts, .shosts, .ssh/authorized_keys and
     so forth, files that might fall outside the purview of the MD5 check.

     If  you  have  a huge amount of user disk space it may take too long to run
     through every file on those partitions.  In this case, setting mount  flags
     to  disallow  SUID binaries on those partitions is a good idea.  The nosuid
     option (see mount(8)) is what you want to look into.   I  would  scan  them
     anyway  at least once a week, since the object of this layer is to detect a
     break-in whether or not the break-in is effective.

     Process accounting (see accton(8)) is a relatively low-overhead feature  of
     the  operating system which I recommend using as a post-break-in evaluation
     mechanism.  It is especially useful in tracking down how  an  intruder  has
     actually  broken into a system, assuming the file is still intact after the
     break-in occurs.

     Finally, security scripts should process the log files and the  logs  them-
     selves should be generated in as secure a manner as possible -- remote sys-
     log  can  be  very  useful.  An intruder tries to cover his tracks, and log
     files are critical to the sysadmin trying to track down the time and method
     of the initial break-in.  One way to keep a permanent  record  of	the  log
     files  is to run the system console to a serial port and collect the infor-
     mation on a continuing basis through a secure machine monitoring  the  con-
     soles.

PARANOIA
     A little paranoia never hurts.  As a rule, a sysadmin can add any number of
     security  features  as  long as they do not affect convenience, and can add
     security features that do affect convenience with some added thought.  Even
     more importantly, a security administrator should mix it up a bit -- if you
     use recommendations such as those given by this manual page  verbatim,  you
     give  away  your methodologies to the prospective attacker who also has ac-
     cess to this manual page.

SPECIAL SECTION ON DoS ATTACKS
     This section covers Denial of Service attacks.  A DoS attack is typically a
     packet attack.  While there is not much you can  do  about  modern  spoofed
     packet attacks that saturate your network, you can generally limit the dam-
     age by ensuring that the attacks cannot take down your servers.

	   1.	Limiting server forks

	   2.	Limiting springboard attacks (ICMP response attacks, ping broad-
		cast, etc.)

	   3.	Kernel Route Cache

     A	common DoS attack is against a forking server that attempts to cause the
     server to eat processes, file descriptors, and  memory  until  the  machine
     dies.   The  inetd(8)  server has several options to limit this sort of at-
     tack.  It should be noted that while it is possible to  prevent  a  machine
     from  going down it is not generally possible to prevent a service from be-
     ing disrupted by the attack.  Read the inetd(8) manual page  carefully  and
     pay specific attention to the -c, -C, and -R options.  Note that spoofed-IP
     attacks  will circumvent the -C option to inetd(8), so typically a combina-
     tion of options must be used.  Some standalone servers have self-fork-limi-
     tation parameters.

     The sendmail(8) daemon has its -OMaxDaemonChildren option	which  tends  to
     work much better than trying to use sendmail(8)'s load limiting options due
     to the load lag.  You should specify a MaxDaemonChildren parameter when you
     start  sendmail(8) high enough to handle your expected load but not so high
     that the computer cannot handle that number of sendmail's	without  falling
     on  its  face.   It  is  also  prudent  to run sendmail(8) in "queued" mode
     (-ODeliveryMode=queued) and to run the  daemon  ("sendmail  -bd")	separate
     from the queue-runs ("sendmail -q15m").  If you still want real-time deliv-
     ery  you  can  run the queue at a much lower interval, such as -q1m, but be
     sure to specify a reasonable MaxDaemonChildren option for that  sendmail(8)
     to prevent cascade failures.

     The  syslogd(8)  daemon  can be attacked directly and it is strongly recom-
     mended that you use the -s option whenever possible, and the -a option oth-
     erwise.

     You should also be fairly careful with connect-back services such	as  tcp-
     wrapper's reverse-identd, which can be attacked directly.	You generally do
     not want to use the reverse-ident feature of tcpwrappers for this reason.

     It is a very good idea to protect internal services from external access by
     firewalling  them	off at your border routers.  The idea here is to prevent
     saturation attacks from outside your LAN, not so much to  protect	internal
     services from network-based root compromise.  Always configure an exclusive
     firewall,	i.e.,  `firewall  everything  except ports A, B, C, D, and M-Z'.
     This way you can firewall off all of your low ports except for certain spe-
     cific services such as named(8) (if you are primary for a zone),  talkd(8),
     sendmail(8), and other internet-accessible services.  If you try to config-
     ure  the  firewall the other way -- as an inclusive or permissive firewall,
     there is a good chance that you will forget to "close" a couple of services
     or that you will add a new internal service and forget to update the  fire-
     wall.   You  can still open up the high-numbered port range on the firewall
     to allow permissive-like operation without  compromising  your  low  ports.
     Also take note that FreeBSD allows you to control the range of port numbers
     used  for	dynamic  binding  via the various net.inet.ip.portrange sysctl's
     ("sysctl net.inet.ip.portrange"), which can also  ease  the  complexity  of
     your  firewall's configuration.  I usually use a normal first/last range of
     4000 to 5000, and a hiport range of 49152 to 65535, then  block  everything
     under  4000 off in my firewall (except for certain specific internet-acces-
     sible ports, of course).

     Another common DoS attack is called a springboard attack  --  to  attack  a
     server  in a manner that causes the server to generate responses which then
     overload the server, the local network, or some other  machine.   The  most
     common  attack  of  this nature is the ICMP PING BROADCAST attack.  The at-
     tacker spoofs ping packets sent to your LAN's broadcast  address  with  the
     source  IP  address set to the actual machine they wish to attack.  If your
     border routers are not configured to  stomp  on  ping's  to  broadcast  ad-
     dresses,  your  LAN winds up generating sufficient responses to the spoofed
     source address to saturate the victim, especially when  the  attacker  uses
     the same trick on several dozen broadcast addresses over several dozen dif-
     ferent  networks  at  once.  Broadcast attacks of over a hundred and twenty
     megabits have been measured.  A second common springboard attack is against
     the ICMP error reporting system.  By  constructing  packets  that	generate
     ICMP  error responses, an attacker can saturate a server's incoming network
     and cause the server to saturate its outgoing network with ICMP  responses.
     This  type of attack can also crash the server by running it out of mbuf's,
     especially if the server cannot drain the ICMP responses it generates  fast
     enough.   The  FreeBSD  kernel  has  a  new  kernel  compile  option called
     ICMP_BANDLIM which limits the effectiveness of these sorts of attacks.  The
     last major class of springboard attacks is related to certain internal  in-
     etd(8)  services such as the UDP echo service.  An attacker simply spoofs a
     UDP packet with the source address being server A's echo port, and the des-
     tination address being server B's echo port, where server A and B are  both
     on  your  LAN.   The two servers then bounce this one packet back and forth
     between each other.  The attacker can overload both servers and their  LANs
     simply  by  injecting a few packets in this manner.  Similar problems exist
     with the internal chargen port.  A competent sysadmin will turn off all  of
     these inetd(8)-internal test services.

     Spoofed packet attacks may also be used to overload the kernel route cache.
     Refer    to    the   net.inet.ip.rtexpire,   net.inet.ip.rtminexpire,   and
     net.inet.ip.rtmaxcache sysctl(8) variables.  A spoofed packet  attack  that
     uses  a  random  source  IP  will	cause the kernel to generate a temporary
     cached route in the route table, viewable with "netstat -rna |  fgrep  W3".
     These  routes  typically  timeout in 1600 seconds or so.  If the kernel de-
     tects that the cached route table has gotten too big  it  will  dynamically
     reduce  the  rtexpire  but will never decrease it to less than rtminexpire.
     There are two problems: (1) The kernel does not react quickly enough when a
     lightly loaded server is suddenly attacked, and (2) The rtminexpire is  not
     low  enough  for the kernel to survive a sustained attack.  If your servers
     are connected to the internet via a T3 or better it may be prudent to manu-
     ally override both rtexpire and rtminexpire via sysctl(8).  Never	set  ei-
     ther parameter to zero (unless you want to crash the machine :-)).  Setting
     both  parameters to 2 seconds should be sufficient to protect the route ta-
     ble from attack.

ACCESS ISSUES WITH KERBEROS AND SSH
     There are a few issues with both Kerberos and SSH that need to be addressed
     if you intend to use them.  Kerberos5 is an excellent authentication proto-
     col but the kerberized telnet(1) and rlogin(1) suck rocks.  There are  bugs
     that  make  them  unsuitable for dealing with binary streams.  Also, by de-
     fault Kerberos does not encrypt a session unless you  use	the  -x  option.
     SSH encrypts everything by default.

     SSH  works  quite well in every respect except when it is set up to forward
     encryption keys.  What this means is that if you have a secure  workstation
     holding keys that give you access to the rest of the system, and you ssh(1)
     to  an  unsecure  machine, your keys become exposed.  The actual keys them-
     selves are not exposed, but ssh(1) installs a forwarding port for the dura-
     tion of your login and if an attacker has broken root on the  unsecure  ma-
     chine he can utilize that port to use your keys to gain access to any other
     machine that your keys unlock.

     We  recommend that you use SSH in combination with Kerberos whenever possi-
     ble for staff logins.  SSH can be compiled with Kerberos support.	This re-
     duces your reliance on potentially exposable SSH keys  while  at  the  same
     time  protecting  passwords via Kerberos.	SSH keys should only be used for
     automated tasks from secure machines (something that Kerberos  is	unsuited
     to).   We also recommend that you either turn off key-forwarding in the SSH
     configuration, or that you make use of the from=IP/DOMAIN option  that  SSH
     allows  in its authorized_keys file to make the key only usable to entities
     logging in from specific machines.

SEE ALSO
     chflags(1),    find(1),	md5(1),    netstat(1),	  openssl(1),	 ssh(1),
     xdm(1)(ports/x11/xorg-clients),   group(5),  ttys(5),  accton(8),	init(8),
     sshd(8), sysctl(8), syslogd(8), vipw(8)

HISTORY
     The security manual page was originally written by Matthew Dillon and first
     appeared in FreeBSD 3.1, December 1998.

FreeBSD 9.1			February 8, 2012		     SECURITY(7)

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