4.7 Network Scanning Countermeasures


Here is a checklist of countermeasures to use when considering technical modifications to networks and filtering devices to reduce the effectiveness of network scanning and probing undertaken by attackers:

  • Filter inbound ICMP message types at border routers and firewalls. This forces attackers to use full-blown TCP port scans against all of your IP addresses to map your network correctly.

  • Filter all outbound ICMP type 3 unreachable messages at border routers and firewalls to prevent UDP port scanning and firewalking from being effective.

  • Consider configuring Internet firewalls so that they can identify port scans and throttle the connections accordingly. You can configure commercial firewall appliances (such as those from Check Point, NetScreen, and WatchGuard) to prevent fast port scans and SYN floods being launched against your networks. On the open source side, there are many tools such as portsentry that can identify port scans and drop all packets from the source IP address for a given period of time.

  • Assess the way that your network firewall and IDS devices handle fragmented IP packets by using fragtest and fragroute when performing scanning and probing exercises. Some devices crash or fail under conditions in which high volumes of fragmented packets are being processed.

  • Ensure that your routing and filtering mechanisms (both firewalls and routers) can't be bypassed using specific source ports or source-routing techniques.

  • If you house publicly accessible FTP services, ensure that your firewalls aren't vulnerable to stateful circumvention attacks relating to malformed PORT and PASV commands.

  • If a commercial firewall is in use, ensure the following:

    • The latest service pack is installed.

    • Antispoofing rules have been correctly defined, so that the device doesn't accept packets with private spoofed source addresses on its external interfaces.

    • Fastmode services aren't used in Check Point Firewall-1 environments.

  • Investigate using inbound proxy servers in your environment if you require a high level of security. A proxy server will not forward fragmented or malformed packets, so it isn't possible to launch FIN scanning or other stealth methods.

  • Be aware of your own network configuration and its publicly accessible ports by launching TCP and UDP port scans along with ICMP probes against your own IP address space. It is surprising how many large companies still don't properly undertake even simple port-scanning exercises.



Network Security Assessment
Network Security Assessment: Know Your Network
ISBN: 059600611X
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2006
Pages: 166
Authors: Chris McNab

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