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Flaw Found iIn Ethernet Device Drivers
Licensed2Hack writes "Security researchers have discovered a serious vulnerability that may be present in many Ethernet device drivers that is causing the devices to broadcast sensitive information over networks.
Seems the device driver writers couldn't be bothered with a memset() call. Eweek has their typical (puffy, low on tech details) take on it here.
Since they don't specify the OS, I'm assuming these are drivers for Windows." It's actually Linux, *BSD, and Windows.
the flaws are in linux drivers too. Who knows, you might even want to read the article.
Straight from the article
OK, it's slashdot, so we expect people to post comments without reading the article, but it's a little ridiculous that the submitter didn't even bother.
You can find the CERT's take on this here:
http://www.kb.cert.org/vuls/id/412115.
In addition (I post too fast), the CERT has made available a list of vulnerable systems that they know of.
Interesting fact: Microsoft Windows is mentioned as "not vulnerable".
Lots of applications have the same fault, e.g. Microsoft Access doesn't appear to memset so you get what ever happens to be kicking around in memory written to emptyness in the database.
Also Access doesn't clean out deleted data.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
@stake's advisory release:0 10603-1.txt
t stake_etherleak_report.pdf
http://www.atstake.com/research/advisories/2003/a
And their etherleak report PDF:
http://www.atstake.com/research/advisories/2003/a
It can't sniff SSH keys from that; SSH is secure even if you sniff *all* packets.
In addition, you also have to be able to get this data. As mentioned by mmol_6453, you can only get the Ethernet frames if you are on the same LAN or if the victim is tunneling the Ethernet frames through a VPN. If there is an IP router between you and the victim, you will probably not be able to get the leaked bytes (and I am glad to see that several routers listed in the CERT advisory are not vulnerable).
The advisory says: "the leaked information may originate from dynamic kernel memory, from static system memory allocated to the device driver, or from a hardware buffer located on the network interface card.". If you are using a broadcast Ethernet medium, then the leaked information collected from the static memory of the device driver or from the hardware buffer on the NIC will probably be much less than what could be collected by running a packet sniffer on the same Ethernet segment, because the leaked bytes will come from previous packets. However, this is different if you are running a switched Ethernet network (not broadcast) because the packet sniffers are less useful in this case.
As I see it, the only real potential for information leakage comes from the device drivers that are leaking bytes from the dynamically allocated kernel memory. Then you could get almost anything from that machine, not only something that is supposed to be sent over the network. On the other hand, it is probably very hard to predict what will be leaked.
It would be interesting if the advisory could give a list of operating systems that are leaking random information from the kernel versus those that are leaking information from the previous packets (in the driver or in the NIC). I would be more worried about the former than the latter.
-Raphaël
RFC1042 says "When necessary, the data field should be padded (with octets of zero)to meet the IEEE 802 minimum frame size requirements."
RFC 2119 says "3. SHOULD This word, or the adjective "RECOMMENDED", mean that there may exist valid reasons in particular circumstances to ignore a particular item, but the full implications must be understood and carefully weighed before choosing a different course."
(8-DCS)
Cisco's Status/Statement
and
Full CERT Advisory
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
No, the SSH private keys are never in an ethernet packet to begin with. You can only get information from the target system that it a) has already sent somewhere else; b) got from a pool of free memory and then sent you packet with fewer than 46 bytes of data in it (i.e. ICMP). I find it hard to believe that this is remotely useful since you only get up to 46 bytes - so your ssh key would have to be in a block of memory that had been deallocated back to the kernel memory pool - and the ethernet driver has to be lucky enough to then allocate that memory when it needed more buffer. But why would it need to allocate more buffer when all you're asking from it is a packet that contains less than 46 bytes?
The idea that it's a useful exploit from that standpoint that you can read a remote systems memory is a bit preposterous. It all seems like it requires a coincidence on the order of planetary alignment for any valuable information to be extracted from this bug. Yes, you can grab parts of previously sent packets - but in a world where all sensitive information is encrypted prior to transmission this flaw is just moot. Fix it, move on, nothing to see here.
Consider the length of time this so-called vulnerability has lurked in the device driver code for all those operating systems, than ask why no one discovered the problem sooner. Could it be that there's nothing to be worried about?
I'm guessing this problem has gone undetected so long because uber-short frames don't naturally occur on most Ethernet installations. Networks typically send real data, not empty frames, that's why we build them in the first place. You have to intentionally generate super-small frames if you want to see them. All the examples @Stake provides are based on ICMP Echo/Echo Replies, where you can specify the packet length at the command line. Show me some real network traffic that exhibits this problem, than I'll start to worry.
Still not convinced? Well, consider that you can't exploit the issue beyond even a single router, and that the vulnerability in most cases is just rehashed data, stuff that's already gone out on the wire. How big a security issue is that? Seems like the least of my problems. I'd worry more about one un-patched system on the network or one stupid marketroid opening a TELNET secession to the web server than I'd worry about this.
I'm going to go out on a limb here and declare this a non-issue. I'm sure the guys over at @Stake are happy to have something to show their bosses (and the media) so soon after the holidays, but it just doesn't look very serious from where I'm sitting.
Wrong topic. This isn't about sniffing the SSH traffic, it's about sniffing the memory of the machine, which can well contain the key.
Your hit-chance is pretty bad, though.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Read the advisory. The problem they're highlighting involves breaking the standard a bit.
What you do is send an ethernet frame that is too small by the standard's requirements. The reply will come back padded to meet the minimum size requirement. Where the padding comes from is apparently the problem...apparently it's just malloc'd, not cleared in any way.
This means, for one thing, that you have to be on the local LAN with your target, since any routing of the packet will re-write the ethernet header, blowing away your sneakiness. It also means that standard ping won't do. You have to be able to break the rules for ethernet to see the effect.
If you read the actual CERT Vulnerability note and seen that Windows is not vulnerable.
When I first saw this, I thought to myself, "Surely Steve Gibson's name is on the report somewhere" because this is the sort of lunacy one usually finds his name on.
...and while it's good that the memory leakage is of contiguous bytes (otherwise they'd be entirely useless) seventeen bytes is a _really_ small window for any meaningful data to come through. If you were lucky, you might be able to get part of a (presumeably encrypted) password, or two and a half words from a typical email. It's also possible that fancy arp-foolery would get you *all* the victim's network traffic, making it the long and obnoxious way to go about doing something as simple as sniffing packets.
...What Eweek published about it was downright silly.
Much to my suprise, @Stake's name was on it. Looking further, I see that Eweek has genuinely made a mountain out of a molehill. Seventeen bytes of randomly chosen data can be snatched from a remote machine, provided it's literally in the same building as the attacker, and provided it's got a cheap-o network card. Pardon me while I quake in fear for the safety of the little children.
Why do we have to be in the same building? Because if the packet in question goes through most routers, they're quite likely to crumple the bits up and throw them away because of it's past use as a means for covert communication.
Their statement about it being "trivial to exploit" should have stopped at just saying it was "trivial". It was good of @Stake to bring this to the attention of programmers, although quite possibly publishing in PDF format made it look a little more important than it really is.