Strange traffic in Snort logs

Yesterday, I was messing around with an older machine which had an older version (and rules) of Snort.

I let it run overnight, sniffing internal network traffic. Today, I checked the logs and saw the following:

root@slackbox:/var/log/snort# cat alert | grep 204.176.49.2
10.150.1.133:32834 -> 204.176.49.2:80 TCP TTL:63 TOS:0x0 ID:40635 IpLen:20 DgmLen:576 DF
10.150.1.133:32882 -> 204.176.49.2:80 TCP TTL:63 TOS:0x0 ID:22086 IpLen:20 DgmLen:576 DF

The whole trace is here, since Blogger tends to choke on Hex payload

So, I've a few questions:

1. Who is 10.150.1.133?

2. Who is 204.176.49.2 and 204.176.49.9?

3. So, I have a Tivo system in the house (the payload confirms this). Why is my Tivo calling out to an IP address that is owned by Verizon Business?

4. Why is my production internal Snort sensor not picking up this traffic but this test internal sensor is?

I've some answers to those questions:

1. 10.150.1.133 is a WRT54GX4 Linksys router. This was somewhat difficult for me to find out, because my main router doesn't normally chat to this particular router (it is isolated). The WRT54GX4's sole purpose is to provide internet connectivity for my Tivo. The Tivo is using an old USB wifi connection that only has WEP support, so I use the WRT54GX4 to provide connectivity for the Tivo, lessening the risk in using WEP by isolating the WAP from the rest of the network. In order for me to find out what IP the Tivo is using, I'd have to sniff the traffic on the WRT54GX4's network, which I don't normally do. What I did instead was ping the IP, then check the arp table of the machine I pinged from. This told me the hostname and MAC address of the IP. Once I saw the hostname, I knew it had to be the Tivo generating this traffic (the payload above also helped).

2. I did a 'whois' search on IPs 204.176.49.2 and 204.176.49.9. Both show as belonging to Verizon Business. What threw me for a loop was that I was expecting it to show as owned by Tivo. After thinking on this a bit, it is more than likely that Verizon Business is providing IP space to Tivo (and maybe other hosting services). That is news to me, since I actually work for Verizon Business and am heavily involved in networking services.

3. I conducted Google searches on the IPs and came up with tons of hits. Some hits documented people who saw traffic outbound from their network to those IPs and they were concerned, but most of the hits show that the outbound connections are part of the Tivo service.

4. It is obvious that I have to compare the two internal Snort sensor's config files, specifically the http_inspect settings. Both internal sensors are on the same subnet (the Tivo is not...the WRT router is behind my main router and uses different IP space...the Tivo is behind this router), so both should've seen it. This leads me to believe that I've been missing some internal traffic, so I'll look into this issue soon.

I just wanted to post this so that when/if everyone that owns a Tivo sees such traffic, they won't get alarmed (I didn't see a specific page that stated that this was normal traffic).

WPA and Slackware (or in this case, Backtrack)

I've got Slackware (OK, actually Backtrack...the differences between the two are subtle but defined pretty well and is a discussion for another day) running wpa_supplicant. In the last week, I've seen several people complaining on the lack of documentation on how to get this running. Another issue that isn't well-documented is the fact that Slackware has no GUI that'll allow the user to switch wireless networks as quickly as possible. My only answer is to use Slackware's KDE-based wifi management tool.

I've used ndiswrapper with a closed-source card on a Toshiba Satellite 1805-S274, in this case.

Anyways, I'm going to attempt to describe how I use wpa-supplicant. My wifi setup uses a PCMCIA card (Linksys WPC54GS) in which I have to use win32 drivers (via ndiswrapper). I created a script in the root directory: wlan_script2.sh.

#!/usr/bin/bash

#Start of script

wpa_supplicant -ieth1 -c/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf -dP -Dndiswrapper -B

dhcpcd -d -t 10 eth1

#End of script

I've also added the following to the bottom of the /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf file:

network={
ssid="youarebeingwatched2"
proto=WPA
key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
psk="There are a lot of steps to this document and the process should be simplified!"
priority=99
}

I usually run the first script above, then the second. I'm then instantly connected without trouble:

bt ~ # ./wlan_script2.sh
Initializing interface 'eth1' conf '/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf' driver 'default' ctrl_interface 'N/A'
bridge 'N/A'
Configuration file '/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf' -> '/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf'
Reading configuration file '/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf'
ctrl_interface='/var/run/wpa_supplicant'
ctrl_interface_group='wheel' (DEPRECATED)
eapol_version=1
ap_scan=1
fast_reauth=1
Priority group 99
id=0 ssid='youarebeingwatched2'
Initializing interface (2) 'eth1'
EAPOL: SUPP_PAE entering state DISCONNECTED
EAPOL: KEY_RX entering state NO_KEY_RECEIVE
EAPOL: SUPP_BE entering state INITIALIZE
EAP: EAP entering state DISABLED
EAPOL: External notification - portEnabled=0
EAPOL: External notification - portValid=0
SIOCGIWRANGE: WE(compiled)=21 WE(source)=18 enc_capa=0xf
capabilities: key_mgmt 0xf enc 0xf
WEXT: Operstate: linkmode=1, operstate=5
Own MAC address: 00:0f:66:4a:42:6a
wpa_driver_wext_set_wpa
wpa_driver_wext_set_key: alg=0 key_idx=0 set_tx=0 seq_len=0 key_len=0
wpa_driver_wext_set_key: alg=0 key_idx=1 set_tx=0 seq_len=0 key_len=0
wpa_driver_wext_set_key: alg=0 key_idx=2 set_tx=0 seq_len=0 key_len=0
wpa_driver_wext_set_key: alg=0 key_idx=3 set_tx=0 seq_len=0 key_len=0
wpa_driver_wext_set_countermeasures
wpa_driver_wext_set_drop_unencrypted
Setting scan request: 0 sec 100000 usec
Using existing control interface directory.
ctrl_interface_group=10 (from group name 'wheel')
Added interface eth1
Daemonize..
dhcpcd: MAC address = 00:0f:66:4a:42:6a
dhcpcd: your IP address = 10.150.1.109

Now, this is a cheap hack and this can be done using the existing Slackware scripts, most likely...it was quicker for me to script this on my own and get internet connectivity up and running quickly. Besides that, I'm OK using this hack. Usually I just turn on the laptop, plug in the wireless PCMCIA adapter (Linksys WPC54GS), run the scripts, and commence to browse!

Any of you got any wireless hacks?

Latest Happenings...

Hey all...it's been awhile.

What's been happening? I've upgraded my Slackware machine to v12.0, wiping my partitions and doing a fresh install. Why? I'd been upgrading my Slack install since v10.0 and the install was becoming rather stagnant, so I backed up the important things and did a reinstall with little issues. I'm not quite done setting things up yet (like grabbing the latest graphics drivers (Nvidia) and testing compiz). I'm quite happy with v12.0, although I've got my work cut out for me concerning learning the differences between this version and the last...I know there were some rather substantial changes, from what I've heard.

What else have I been doing? Devlving in FreeBSD and OpenBSD a bit more. I've converted my FreeBSD machine's firewall from ipf to pf. The .conf files use similar syntax but the command structure is quite different, along with the number of functions that pf can perform. pf appears quite a bit more robust than ipf...ipf appears to be a minor reflection of pf. I'm definitely learning things, but the machine that pf is running on only serves SSH connections, but that's quit enough for me at this point in time.

I've also decided to reflash my Linksys router to an opensource firmware called Tomato. It runs on the WRT54G/GS, some Buffalo, and Broadcom-based routers. It appears very robust and easy to set up. It is also easy to revert back to the original firmware. I recommend giving this one a shot. It is not meant to be something akin to OpenWRT or similar...it's designed to be and stay light and fast, which it is, but is also has plugins for functionality that may be mandatory for the above-average hacker.

I've also just returned from vacation in California. I think I may end up buying a home there, near the San Diego area, as that place is so much different than where I'm at now, plus we'll be close to relatives and nice vacation sites. I just have to start conducting employment research so I can see what that area can offer me, employment-wise. It may mean me going to a different part of the IT arena (sysadmin or something similar). I don't mind changing my job a bit, as long as I stay in some type of management position.

What projects do I have or plan on conducting? I intend to clean up my office and turning off some hardware or consolidating some server duties, because my office looks like a rat's nest. It's partly because there are no power outlets in my office (!!). Yeah, I'm renting and the prior owners finished the basement but appeared to be in such a rush that they neglected to put the power outlets back in place. I think I can do one (maybe with my father's help)...one may be enough. Right now, I've a beefy power cord running from the storage area to my office space...everything is attached to that one strip (yeah, a bit dangerous, but I spend a bit of money on beefy surge protection).

Well, I think this post more than makes up for the last few weeks/months of non-activity. I shall try to be more vigilant in posting in the future (famous last words).

Using a PCMCIA Wifi Card On Your Laptop - Closed-source Chipsets

I've got my WPC54GS Linksys wifi card, which uses a closed-source chipset (Broadcom), working with Slackware 10.2 installed on a Dell Inspiron 8500. I've posted the process to get this working before at slackwiki.org.

I've scripted this process. You can grab the script from here. Edit it as you see fit. Many people actually use the tools that come with Slackware (the wireless configs in /etc/rc.d, I believe). I script my own, as I've many different wifi cards that I often swap out for different needs.

Anyways, give it a shot.

My next task is getting WPA working with the card (wpa_supplicant, I believe).

Iptables again

During the last 3-4 days, I've been playing with Iptables:

1. I'm having an issue where my SSH sessions to wigglit.ath.cx time out. Last night, I flushed the firewall rules and left the firewall bare of rules for the night while leaving a term logged in via SSH. The session still timed out but I don't know if this is an eventual time out or something related to SSH. I don't have any rulesets related to SSH in my Iptables file (with the exception of allowing all SSH).

2. I've been testing some firewall log parsers, namely fwlogwatch and wflogs. Both are nice, but wflogs has more configuration options. Both supposedly parse Snort logs, but I haven't been able to do this with either tool. Both tools are out-dated with no activity to either project in the last few years.

3. The ##slackware bot, slackboy, doesn't start automatically when I reboot the wigglit.ath.cx server, but does throw a MSG534 error, which doesn't make sense. There's also not much Google data on this particular error, especially solutions to the issue. I've a line added in /etc/rc.d/rc.local (su ron -c /home/ron/eggdrop/eggdrop /home/ron/eggdrop/slackboy.conf) that will sometimes run and sometimes not (when I execute it manually). Today, I just ran it as a normal user in the bot's directory (eggdrop -c slackboy.conf) and it worked. Weird.

I'm also using my Linksys wifi card (the WPC54GS PCMCIA card). I've done this in the past and actually have a script that I use to initiate the card. This card has no opensource drivers so I use ndiswrapper. Here's the dmesg initiation data:

ndiswrapper version 0.11 loaded (preempt=no,smp=no)
PCI: Setting latency timer of device 03:00.0 to 64
ndiswrapper: using irq 11
wlan0: ndiswrapper ethernet device 00:0f:66:4a:42:6a using driver lsbcmnds
wlan0: encryption modes supported: WEP, WPA with TKIP, AES/CCMP
ndiswrapper: driver lsbcmnds (Cisco-Linksys ,LLC.,02/19/2004, 3.50.21.11) added

The lsbcmnds driver is a Windows driver that ndiswrapper uses. I can't use this driver for things such as Kismet, but for typical enduser type work, it is functional. I'd rather not have to buy another wifi card just to be Linux-idealistic.

I also want to be able to use WPA, but I'm only using WEP at the moment. The reason for this is that my Tivo uses wireless to pull programming data. The wifi adapter that I'm using is supported by Tivo but I don't believe it has WPA capability. This is the only thing holding me back from using WPA. The adapter is a WUSB11 v2.8. I shall double-check to see if it is WPA-capable. Even so, I'd still like to eventually get away from 11B. That's going to be hard to get away from, since Tivo only has limited support for 54G.