26.1.7 Lab - Snort and Firewall Rules
26.1.7 Lab - Snort and Firewall Rules
26.1.7 Lab - Snort and Firewall Rules
Topology
Objectives
Part 1: Preparing the Virtual Environment
Part 2: Firewall and IDS Logs
Part 3: Terminate and Clear Mininet Process
Background / Scenario
In a secure production network, network alerts are generated by various types of devices such as security
appliances, firewalls, IPS devices, routers, switches, servers, and more. The problem is that not all alerts are
created equally. For example, alerts generated by a server and alerts generated by a firewall will be different
and vary in content and format.
In this lab, to get familiar with firewall rules and IDS signatures.
Required Resources
CyberOps Workstation virtual machine
Internet connection
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Lab - Snort and Firewall Rules
Note: In this lab, the CyberOps Workstation VM is a container for holding the Mininet environment shown in
the Topology. If a memory error is received in an attempt to run any command, quit out of the step, go to the
VM settings, and increase the memory. The default is 1 GB; try 2GB.
Instructions
c. Use the ifconfig command to verify CyberOps Workstation VM now has an IP address on your local
network. You can also test connectivity to a public webserver by pinging www.cisco.com. Use Ctrl+C to
stop the pings.
[analyst@secOps ~]$ ping www.cisco.com
PING e2867.dsca.akamaiedge.net (23.204.15.199) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from a23-204-15-199.deploy.static.akamaitechnologies.com
(23.204.15.199): icmp_seq=1 ttl=54 time=28.4 ms
64 bytes from a23-204-15-199.deploy.static.akamaitechnologies.com
(23.204.15.199): icmp_seq=2 ttl=54 time=35.5 ms
^C
--- e2867.dsca.akamaiedge.net ping statistics ---
2 packets transmitted, 2 received, 0% packet loss, time 1002ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 28.446/32.020/35.595/3.578 ms
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Lab - Snort and Firewall Rules
are packets that were not explicitly allowed and therefore, infringe on the organization’s policies. Such events
should be recorded for future analysis.
The mininet prompt should be displayed, indicating mininet is ready for commands.
b. From the mininet prompt, open a shell on R1 using the command below:
mininet> xterm R1
mininet>
Question:
The R1 shell opens in a terminal window with black text and white background. What user is logged into
that shell? What is the indicator of this?
Root. Diakses oleh administratorpe your answers here.
Note: You will not see a prompt as Snort is now running in this window. If for any reason, Snort stops
running and the [root@secOps analysts]# prompt is displayed, rerun the script to launch Snort. Snort
must be running to capture alerts later in the lab.
d. From the CyberOps Workstation VM mininet prompt, open shells for hosts H5 and H10.
mininet> xterm H5
mininet> xterm H10
mininet>
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Lab - Snort and Firewall Rules
e. H10 will simulate a server on the Internet that is hosting malware. On H10, run the mal_server_start.sh
script to start the server.
[root@secOps analyst]# ./lab.support.files/scripts/mal_server_start.sh
[root@secOps analyst]#
f. On H10, use netstat with the -tunpa options to verify that the web server is running. When used as
shown below, netstat lists all ports currently assigned to services:
[root@secOps analyst]# netstat -tunpa
Active Internet connections (servers and established)
Proto Recv-Q Send-Q Local Address Foreign Address State
PID/Program name
tcp 0 0 0.0.0.0:6666 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN
1839/nginx: master
[root@secOps analyst]#
As seen by the output above, the lightweight webserver nginx is running and listening to connections on
port TCP 6666.
g. In the R1 terminal window, an instance of Snort is running. To enter more commands on R1, open
another R1 terminal by entering the xterm R1 again in the CyberOps Workstation VM terminal window.
You may also want to arrange the terminal windows so that you can see and interact with each device.
h. In the new R1 terminal tab, run the tail command with the -f option to monitor the /var/log/snort/alert file
in real-time. This file is where snort is configured to record alerts.
[root@sec0ps analyst]# tail -f /var/log/snort/alert
Because no alerts were yet recorded, the log should be empty. However, if you have run this lab before,
old alert entries may be shown. In either case, you will not receive a prompt after typing this command.
This window will display alerts as they happen.
i. From H5, use the wget command to download a file named W32.Nimda.Amm.exe. Designed to
download content via HTTP, wget is a great tool for downloading files from web servers directly from the
command line.
[root@secOps analyst]# wget 209.165.202.133:6666/W32.Nimda.Amm.exe
--2017-04-28 17:00:04-- http://209.165.202.133:6666/W32.Nimda.Amm.exe
Connecting to 209.165.202.133:6666... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: 345088 (337K) [application/octet-stream]
Saving to: 'W32.Nimda.Amm.exe'
[root@secOps analyst]#
Question:
What port is used when communicating with the malware web server? What is the indicator?
6666e your answers here.
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Lab - Snort and Firewall Rules
Based on the alert shown above, what was the source and destination IPv4 addresses used in the
transaction?
209.165.200.235 and 209.165.202.133pe your answers here.
Based on the alert shown above, what was the source and destination ports used in the transaction?
52666 and 6666pe your answers here.
Based on the alert shown above, when did the download take place?
10/24-11:51:34pe your answers here.
Based on the alert shown above, what was the message recorded by the IDS signature?
Malicious Server Hit!pe your answers here.
On H5, use the tcpdump command to capture the event and download the malware file again so you can
capture the transaction. Issue the following command below start the packet capture:
[root@secOps analyst]# tcpdump –i H5-eth0 –w nimda.download.pcap &
[1] 5633
[root@secOps analyst]# tcpdump: listening on H5-eth0, link-type EN10MB (Ethernet),
capture size 262144 bytes
The command above instructs tcpdump to capture packets on interface H5-eth0 and save the capture to
a file named nimda.download.pcap.
The & symbol at the end tells the shell to execute tcpdump in the background. Without this symbol,
tcpdump would make the terminal unusable while it was running. Notice the [1] 5633; it indicates one
process was sent to background and its process ID (PID) is 5366. Your PID will most likely be different.
k. Press ENTER a few times to regain control of the shell while tcpdump runs in background.
l. Now that tcpdump is capturing packets, download the malware again. On H5, re-run the command or
use the up arrow to recall it from the command history facility.
[root@secOps analyst]# wget 209.165.202.133:6666/W32.Nimda.Amm.exe
--2017-05-02 10:26:50-- http://209.165.202.133:6666/W32.Nimda.Amm.exe
Connecting to 209.165.202.133:6666... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: 345088 (337K) [application/octet-stream]
Saving to: 'W32.Nimda.Amm.exe'
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Lab - Snort and Firewall Rules
m. Stop the capture by bringing tcpdump to foreground with the fg command. Because tcpdump was the
only process sent to background, there is no need to specify the PID. Stop the tcpdump process with
Ctrl+C. The tcpdump process stops and displays a summary of the capture. The number of packets may
be different for your capture.
[root@secOps analyst]# fg
tcpdump -i h5-eth0 -w nimda.download.pcap
^C316 packets captured
316 packets received by filter
0 packets dropped by kernel
[root@secOps analyst]#
n. On H5, Use the ls command to verify the pcap file was in fact saved to disk and has size greater than
zero:
[root@secOps analyst]# ls -l
total 1400
drwxr-xr-x 2 analyst analyst 4096 Sep 26 2014 Desktop
drwx------ 3 analyst analyst 4096 Jul 14 11:28 Downloads
drwxr-xr-x 8 analyst analyst 4096 Jul 25 16:27 lab.support.files
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 371784 Aug 17 14:48 nimda.download.pcap
drwxr-xr-x 2 analyst analyst 4096 Mar 3 15:56 second_drive
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 345088 Apr 14 15:17 W32.Nimda.Amm.exe
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 345088 Apr 14 15:17 W32.Nimda.Amm.exe.1
[root@secOps analyst]#
Note: Your directory list may have a different mix of files, but you should still see the
nimda.download.pcap file.
Question:
Note: The analysis of the PCAP file will be performed in another lab.
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Lab - Snort and Firewall Rules
Traffic originated somewhere else and passing through the firewall device is handled by the FORWARD
chain. Examples of this traffic are packets being routed by the firewall.
Each chain can have its own set of independent rules specifying how traffic is to be filtered for that chain. A
chain can have practically any number of rules, including no rule at all.
Rules are created to check specific characteristics of packets, allowing administrators to create very
comprehensive filters. If a packet doesn’t match a rule, the firewall moves on to the next rule and checks
again. If a match is found, the firewall takes the action defined in the matching rule. If all rules in a chain have
been checked and yet no match was found, the firewall takes the action specified in the chain’s policy, usually
allow the packet to flow through or deny it.
a. In the CyberOps Workstation VM, start a third R1 terminal window.
mininet > xterm R1
b. In the new R1 terminal window, use the iptables command to list the chains and their rules currently in
use:
[root@secOps ~]# iptables -L -v
Chain INPUT (policy ACCEPT 0 packets, 0 bytes)
pkts bytes target prot opt in out source destination
[root@secOps ~]#
Question:
c. Connections to the malicious server generate packets that must transverse the iptables firewall on R1.
Packets traversing the firewall are handled by the FORWARD rule and therefore, that is the chain that will
receive the blocking rule. To keep user computers from connecting to the malicious server identified in
Step 1, add the following rule to the FORWARD chain on R1:
[root@secOps ~]# iptables -I FORWARD -p tcp -d 209.165.202.133 --dport 6666 -j
DROP
[root@secOps ~]#
Where:
o -I FORWARD: inserts a new rule in the FORWARD chain.
o -p tcp: specifies the TCP protocol.
o -d 209.165.202.133: specifies the packet’s destination
o --dport 6666: specifies the destination port
o -j DROP: set the action to drop.
d. Use the iptables command again to ensure the rule was added to the FORWARD chain. The CyberOps
Workstation VM may take a few seconds to generate the output:
[root@secOps analyst]# iptables -L -v
Chain INPUT (policy ACCEPT 0 packets, 0 bytes)
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Lab - Snort and Firewall Rules
What would be a more aggressive but also valid approach when blocking the offending server?
Type your answers here.
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