Security Basics mailing list archives
RE: Re: Concepts: Security and Obscurity
From: "Craig Wright" <Craig.Wright () bdo com au>
Date: Wed, 18 Apr 2007 12:33:17 +1000
Yes _ I have read this before. I would use the quote from this paper: "See, so long as you understand that the server location and port number can't serve as a method of authentication, you haven't harmed your security in the slightest." Jay Beale In the case of SPA and portknocking, the obscurity is used as a form of authentication and thus not what is being defined by the author (see quote above). In the chase of changing the ports for an SSH service this mirrors Beale's assertion that "Obscurity Potentially Slows Down the Attacker". The key here is that it is a potential control. I do see this as a valid research topic and proposal, but nothing has followed up in regards to this. It is just a hypothesis at present and an untested one. And as regards to any untested hypothesis, without proof it should not be believed. This is why the US FDA takes years to test drugs, why engineering claims have to be tested etc. An obscure system works on the idea that people do not know how it functions. This is not the same as a password or secrecy as has been suggested. I can know the process used by a host that accepts passwords and this process can be published without my guessing the password. In fact the protocols for Kerberous, NTLM etc are all published and I can read them as often as I like. In port forwarding, if I publish the process, the control is broken - thus the control is reliant on obscuricy and not secrecy. This is the difference of obscurity and secrecy. To take another quote from the same paper: "Now, remember, don't get too cocky. He can still find our server. It might not even take tons of extra effort, if he guesses well. We might still not observe him, if we have no procedures or technology set up to do the observing!" My argument lies with the value of what is supposedly gained. There is a cost in configuring the service and updating clients. To be effective the level of gain needs to exceed the cost. At no point have I seen any valid attempt to quantify the supposed gains. If the supposed gains are not measurable they are not real. There may be a probabilistic error level and confidence range, but it needs to be quantifiable. Voas et al - http://csrc.nist.gov/nissc/1998/proceedings/paperA4.pdf in "An Approach for Certifying Security in Software Components" have an approach which would provide a assertion capability to allow the assertion that obscurity adds value. In particular it could be used to assess SPA and Portknocking. To take a quote from B Schiener in this paper: "Billions of dollars are spent on computer security, and most of it is wasted on insecure products. After all, weak security looks the same on the shelf as strong cryptography. Two e-mail encryption products may have almost the same user interface, yet one is secure while the other permits eavesdropping. A comparison chart may suggest that two programs have similar features, although one has gaping security holes that the other doesn't. An experienced cryptographer can tell the dierence. So can a thief." And from the Authors: "Electronic commerce components may all appear to be equally secure on the surface. Only objective assessment can ascertain the true story. The role of the certication process will be to objectively evaluate the security of software components." Regards, Craig Craig Wright Manager of Information Systems Direct +61 2 9286 5497 Craig.Wright () bdo com au BDO Kendalls (NSW) Level 19, 2 Market Street Sydney NSW 2000 GPO Box 2551 Sydney NSW 2001 Fax +61 2 9993 9497 www.bdo.com.au Liability limited by a scheme approved under Professional Standards Legislation in respect of matters arising within those States and Territories of Australia where such legislation exists. The information in this email and any attachments is confidential. If you are not the named addressee you must not read, print, copy, distribute, or use in any way this transmission or any information it contains. If you have received this message in error, please notify the sender by return email, destroy all copies and delete it from your system. Any views expressed in this message are those of the individual sender and not necessarily endorsed by BDO Kendalls. You may not rely on this message as advice unless subsequently confirmed by fax or letter signed by a Partner or Director of BDO Kendalls. It is your responsibility to scan this communication and any files attached for computer viruses and other defects. BDO Kendalls does not accept liability for any loss or damage however caused which may result from this communication or any files attached. A full version of the BDO Kendalls disclaimer, and our Privacy statement, can be found on the BDO Kendalls website at http://www.bdo.com.au or by emailing administrator () bdo com au. BDO Kendalls is a national association of separate partnerships and entities. -----Original Message----- From: Nhon Yeung [mailto:Nhon.Yeung () cranegroup com au] Sent: Wednesday, 18 April 2007 11:15 AM To: Craig Wright; TheGesus Cc: Florian Rommel; levinson_k () securityadmin info; security-basics () securityfocus com Subject: RE: Re: Concepts: Security and Obscurity <http://www.bastille-linux.org/jay/obscurity-revisited.html> Jay Beale's take on obscurity. I do believe that obscurity does have a role in security, as it can be used as a deterrent much like a hiding your cash in dirty underwear. Any thief would steal you hard earned if you leave it on your table, but it takes a determined one to go through your dirty laundry. -----Original Message----- From: listbounce () securityfocus com [mailto:listbounce () securityfocus com]On Behalf Of Craig Wright Sent: Wednesday, 18 April 2007 8:39 AM To: TheGesus Cc: Florian Rommel; levinson_k () securityadmin info; security-basics () securityfocus com Subject: RE: Re: Concepts: Security and Obscurity This is not availablility - rather a configuration decision. After configuring the service on the changed port, this now has little to do with availability. Craig Craig Wright Manager of Information Systems Direct +61 2 9286 5497 Craig.Wright () bdo com au BDO Kendalls (NSW) Level 19, 2 Market Street Sydney NSW 2000 GPO Box 2551 Sydney NSW 2001 Fax +61 2 9993 9497 www.bdo.com.au Liability limited by a scheme approved under Professional Standards Legislation in respect of matters arising within those States and Territories of Australia where such legislation exists. The information in this email and any attachments is confidential. If you are not the named addressee you must not read, print, copy, distribute, or use in any way this transmission or any information it contains. If you have received this message in error, please notify the sender by return email, destroy all copies and delete it from your system. Any views expressed in this message are those of the individual sender and not necessarily endorsed by BDO Kendalls. You may not rely on this message as advice unless subsequently confirmed by fax or letter signed by a Partner or Director of BDO Kendalls. It is your responsibility to scan this communication and any files attached for computer viruses and other defects. BDO Kendalls does not accept liability for any loss or damage however caused which may result from this communication or any files attached. A full version of the BDO Kendalls disclaimer, and our Privacy statement, can be found on the BDO Kendalls website at http://www.bdo.com.au or by emailing administrator () bdo com au. BDO Kendalls is a national association of separate partnerships and entities. -----Original Message----- From: TheGesus [mailto:thegesus () gmail com] Sent: Wednesday, 18 April 2007 8:33 AM To: Craig Wright Cc: Florian Rommel; levinson_k () securityadmin info; security-basics () securityfocus com Subject: Re: Re: Concepts: Security and Obscurity Again, last I heard availability had something to do with security. Maybe we can all agree that "port obscurity" is a special case of STO. Somehow, I doubt it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credentialism On 4/17/07, Craig Wright <Craig.Wright () bdo com au> wrote:
This is not obscurity for security - rather a use of a different port for a reason other than security. There are differences in this assertion and little to do with security in the reasoning. Craig Craig Wright Manager of Information Systems Direct +61 2 9286 5497 Craig.Wright () bdo com au BDO Kendalls (NSW) Level 19, 2 Market Street Sydney NSW 2000 GPO Box 2551 Sydney NSW 2001 Fax +61 2 9993 9497 www.bdo.com.au Liability limited by a scheme approved under Professional Standards
Legislation in respect of matters arising within those States and Territories of Australia where such legislation exists.
The information in this email and any attachments is confidential. If
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and not necessarily endorsed by BDO Kendalls. You may not rely on this message as advice unless subsequently confirmed by fax or letter signed by a Partner or Director of BDO Kendalls. It is your responsibility to scan this communication and any files attached for computer viruses and other defects. BDO Kendalls does not accept liability for any loss or damage however caused which may result from this communication or any files attached. A full version of the BDO Kendalls disclaimer, and our Privacy statement, can be found on the BDO Kendalls website at http://www.bdo.com.au or by emailing administrator () bdo com au.
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-----Original Message----- From: TheGesus [mailto:thegesus () gmail com] Sent: Wednesday, 18 April 2007 8:08 AM To: Craig Wright Cc: Florian Rommel; levinson_k () securityadmin info; security-basics () securityfocus com Subject: Re: Re: Concepts: Security and Obscurity I'd just like to point out - I'm not really interested in this "prove me wrong" game/troll, per se - that, in the specific case of SSH, port obscurity is sometimes a necessity. The PuTTy SSH client for Windows can be used through a proxy server. But the port has to be authorized for SSL on that (non-SOCKS) proxy. Port 22 is never, ever authorized. You are always guaranteed port 443, but you can't always use it if you already have something listening on 443. In that case, the next most common (obscure) SSL ports are generally available. Oracle, for some obscure reason, likes to use TCP 8000, 8001, 8002, and 8003 for https. These are often "SSL authorized" on proxies. The various offices of the federal government (USA) are also fond of obscure ports for SSL. So I keep a list of obscure SSL ports, because it comes in very handy. I have found the Oracle SSL ports to be the most commonly authorized, so I use TCP 8000. As it turns out, TCP 8000 is not obscure. It is scanned regularly, but never for SSH. It's scanned for the presence of an anonymous proxy. Every single day. But with my crappy company-issued Windows laptop I can always "get in" wherever I am even if I can only "get out" through a proxy. THAT is availability, and last I heard availability had something to do with security. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credentialism On 4/16/07, Craig Wright <Craig.Wright () bdo com au> wrote:Hi Florian, Well I have to state that you are lucky, I still get a subnet at
home
that is no longer connected scanned about once a second from new addresses. Than again, maybe it is me and I attract this ;). The anecdote you have provided is a start, but it needs to be made scientifically sound. Also, the results demonstrate a record of the scans and not the survival. There is a little more than the number of scans to be considered. I
am
sure that none of us really cares (in more than general interest)
how
many scan we receive. What is important is to check the
survivability
without all the confounding variables which people keep adding. This needs to be done in a manner which is statistically valid, i.e.notanecdote from either side of the table and it has to be replicable. A real world Honeypot experiment would suffice. I have setup Linux
and
Windows hosts in the past to check them attractiveness of these, butinthis case it would be to see the general attractiveness of a serviceandthan how long it took to be compromised. So, as an example (one amongst many possibilities) a group of hosts(orvirtual hosts) could be setup and run with SSH on half on the
standard
ports and the other half on random ports. Leave these as a Honeypotandtime the survival - i.e. the time to initial compromise. Repeat thetesta number of times till a valid statistical sample is obtained. The hosts could be mixed (i.e. Linux, Solaris etc), but they have tobemirrored in the standard vs. obscured configs (eg 3 Linux SSH, 3
Linux
SSH on TCP 443; Solaris SSH and Solaris SSH on TCP 443) with equal patching. This experiment would remove the confounding variables and provide a means of actually measuring the level of additional protection as a factor of time provided through the addition of an "obscurity"
factor
and would categorically answer the question - does obscurity provide additional security. The way to test the results would be to take the means of the
survival
times from both the standard (SSH on TCP 22) and Obscured hosts (TCPnotequal to 22). The results from the hosts would than have to bemodelledand a simple ANOVA based test of the 2 hypothesis: Ho: There is no additional security through obscurity Ha: Obscurity gives some level of additional security ... Could lead us to the answer. In this, if there is enough evidence of a variation in survival
times,
then Ha is valid and you can state that there is an improvement in security from adding a layer of obscurity. If there is not
sufficient
evidence, than Ho the Null hypothesis stands and the premise that we have no gain in security through obscurity stands. This is what scientific proof is about. My offer of the donationstandsand I will even help anyone who wishes to do this with time inanalysisand experimental design in an unbiased manner. Doing this and writing it up should provide the tester a document
that
they could publish, so there is a little more than proving me wrong
in
it. So again - any takers? Who wishes to attempt to prove me wrong and
get
to categorically state that obscurity is a valuable tool in thesecurityprofessional's arsenal? Of course that also means you have to have
an
open mind and you may be demonstrating that there is no evidenced to support the claim the obscurity adds anything. Regards, Dr Craig Wright Craig Wright Manager of Information Systems Direct +61 2 9286 5497 Craig.Wright () bdo com au BDO Kendalls (NSW) Level 19, 2 Market Street Sydney NSW 2000 GPO Box 2551 Sydney NSW 2001 Fax +61 2 9993 9497 www.bdo.com.au Liability limited by a scheme approved under Professional StandardsLegislation in respect of matters arising within those States and Territories of Australia where such legislation exists.The information in this email and any attachments is confidential.
If
you are not the named addressee you must not read, print, copy, distribute, or use in any way this transmission or any information it contains. If you have received this message in error, please notify
the
sender by return email, destroy all copies and delete it from your system.Any views expressed in this message are those of the individual
sender
and not necessarily endorsed by BDO Kendalls. You may not rely on
this
message as advice unless subsequently confirmed by fax or letter
signed
by a Partner or Director of BDO Kendalls. It is your responsibility
to
scan this communication and any files attached for computer viruses
and
other defects. BDO Kendalls does not accept liability for any loss or damage however caused which may result from this communication or any files attached. A full version of the BDO Kendalls disclaimer, and
our
Privacy statement, can be found on the BDO Kendalls website at http://www.bdo.com.au or by emailing administrator () bdo com au.BDO Kendalls is a national association of separate partnerships andentities.-----Original Message----- From: Florian Rommel [mailto:frommel () gmail com] Sent: Monday, 16 April 2007 4:24 PM To: Craig Wright Cc: levinson_k () securityadmin info; security-basics () securityfocus com Subject: Re: Re: Concepts: Security and Obscurity Hello to everyone. I actually think this discussion is very
fruitful.
It provides a good way of proofing/unproofing the concept. I would like to add one thing though. Craig, your argument is that you need proof of declined hack
attempts.
I would like to take the simple example of SSH. SSH bruteforcing is still going through the roof. I have a DSL connection and when my
SSH
server was on port 22 I received about 50-100 false logins per day. Not much you say and I agree but for a home connection it is.
However
I then moved ssh to port 443 (SSL) as I am not running a secure webserver. I need the standard port access to be able to ssh from
work
to home and I have had 0 bruteforce attempts per day now. Would that not qualify as some sort of Security through obscurity? //Flosse http://blog.2blocksaway.com PS: I haven't gotten a 443 attempt either though port 80 does get "accessed" quite a lot. On 4/15/07, Craig Wright <Craig.Wright () bdo com au> wrote:No Karl, you have not provided mathematical proof or something
that
serves to prove your point.I stated survivability - the number of scans by service not the
key
tothis test. The number of scans and attacks are differnt factors. Ascanis not an attack. Now as you state, proving a negative for all casesisnear impossible, but you have to prove the positive, and this is not being done. You have not as yet proved proof.As I have stated, please provide some proof. Demonstrate howobscurityworks. Either provide an experiment or a peer reviewed paper. Speculation is not proof. You keep stating that there are other
cases
tomy proofs and I have stated that disproving a negative is often afutileeffort. Please provide real proof and not just state that your viewsareproof.The number of scans example is not a survivability case and is notproof for your assertion.Craig Craig Wright Manager of Information Systems Direct +61 2 9286 5497 Craig.Wright () bdo com au BDO Kendalls (NSW) Level 19, 2 Market Street Sydney NSW 2000 GPO Box 2551 Sydney NSW 2001 Fax +61 2 9993 9497 www.bdo.com.au Liability limited by a scheme approved under Professional
Standards
Legislation in respect of matters arising within those States and Territories of Australia where such legislation exists.The information in this email and any attachments is confidential.Ifyou are not the named addressee you must not read, print, copy, distribute, or use in any way this transmission or any information
it
contains. If you have received this message in error, please notifythesender by return email, destroy all copies and delete it from your system.Any views expressed in this message are those of the individualsenderand not necessarily endorsed by BDO Kendalls. You may not rely onthismessage as advice unless subsequently confirmed by fax or lettersignedby a Partner or Director of BDO Kendalls. It is your responsibilitytoscan this communication and any files attached for computer virusesandother defects. BDO Kendalls does not accept liability for any loss
or
damage however caused which may result from this communication or
any
files attached. A full version of the BDO Kendalls disclaimer, andourPrivacy statement, can be found on the BDO Kendalls website at http://www.bdo.com.au or by emailing administrator () bdo com au.BDO Kendalls is a national association of separate partnerships
and
entities.________________________________ From: listbounce () securityfocus com on behalf oflevinson_k () securityadmin infoSent: Sat 14/04/2007 2:53 PM To: security-basics () securityfocus com Subject: Re: Re: Concepts: Security and ObscurityIn a test that is determined scientifically and without
bias,
the results show that obscurity does not reduce risk and isthusnot abenefit.I'd love to see such a study. It does not exist.Actually, I believe the honeynet project compiles statistics onhowwellobfuscation of ports works, and last I read they have decided itmakesno difference at all. Services running on nonstandard ports are attacked just as much as services on standard ports over time.It is easy to demonstrate this is false. http://www.incidents.org/top10.html The top ports receiving unsolicited scans are all well known,published server ports:TCP 8080 TCP 2967 (symantec) TCP 445 TCP 139 TCP 1434 TCP 5900 Put a server on any other port, and your number of attacks is
going
tobe demonstrably lower than the numbers above. Hence, reduced risk
by
obscurity.Besides, given that so much hacking nowadays is financiallymotivatedand aims at compromising the most systems starting with low hanging fruit, I don't see how could anyone could prove that non-standardportsare attacked just as often as standard ports.Anyways, obfuscation of ports is just one example of obscurity,
and
any study of that countermeasure would not be applicable to all
forms
ofobscurity. That's why I objected to the absurd claim that it has
been
mathematically proven that all forms of obscurity are ineffectual,
and
objected to the attempts here to point out some examples of bad obscurity in order to prove that obscurity is universally bad. Certainly some forms of obscurity are ineffectual. I only need topointout one beneficial form of obscurity to invalidate such universal statements. People talking about math should realize my side is
more
likely to be proven true.There, I gave mathematical data suggesting that obscuritysignificantly reduces the number and type of threats it was intendedtoreduce. Let's see some statistics proving otherwise.Obscurity does not work.It is impossible for you to make that assertion for allenvironments and situations. Yes it is possible to make that assertion, based on logic and
hard
math.Security has nothing at all to do with raw numbers of break in attempts,Incorrect. Security is based on risk management and
(quantitative)
risk assessment, which are mathematical formulas that evaluate the likelihood of certain risks occurring in a given year, e.g. rawnumbersof break in attempts. Furthermore, risk assessment, whilemathematical,is pretty meaningless unless you apply it to specific situations, because the value, threats and existing countermeasures of aparticularsystem are variables that have to be known and inserted into the mathematical formula. That's why I say you cannot assert thatobscurityis never a (cost) effective measure at reducing risk.Obscurity absolutely can and often does reduce certain kinds ofrisks,such as risk of script kiddies and viruses, frequently at very lowcost.I can't see how anyone can debate that point. Though some hereclearlydo not see any valueand everything to do with how resilient a system is to any and all attacks.That's not how security and countermeasure evaluation, e.g.quantitative risk assessment, work. Countermeasures are designed to mitigate JUST SPECIFIC THREATS, not all of them. It is meaningless
to
evaluate countermeasures by including threats that they were never designed to mitigate. Firewalls don't protect against social engineering, but that doesn't mean you don't need one.The "obscurity factor" is utterly irrelevant because it has no impact what so ever on actual security. Using offered examples, if your passwords are good ones it makes absolutely no difference how many times an attacker tries to guess them
because
theysimply can't make enough attempts in any sane time frame to do
any
damage. Inversely, a single attempt is all it might take to"crack"aweakly protected system regardless of what port it's made on. Sotheonly security one could possibly gain by limiting the numbers of attempts is of type "false sense".Not true. It is an obvious truism that most all computers,especiallythose on the Internet, are going to be vulnerable to unpatched zerodayvulnerabilities from time to time. Once a vulnerability is
exploited
bya network worm or easily downloadable script tool, your likelihood
of
being compromised (a key component in quantitative risk assessment) increases. If you change the port on which your server listens, you evade those attacks, and your likelihood of being compromiseddecreasessignificantly.Please note here that by your purely theoretical definition, thesystem is just as secure in both cases, because its configuration
and
resistance to attack have not changed at all. And yet, in the real world, the system has a reduced risk and/or reduced number ofcompromiseevents (which is the key result in quantitative risk assessmentformulasused to judge security).conclusion that it can't be any other way. Obscurity carries
with
itprecisely as much potential for disaster as it does its ability
to
"hidesomething". That direct relationship exists by the very
definition
ofobscurity.Most of the supposed dangers, risks and costs of obscurity areactually risks of incompetent administration and failures of other recommended security countermeasures such as the system procedures
and
configuration being documented. If your sysadmin assumes a system
is
inthe default configuration and takes a damaging action based on that assumption, that's arguably not the fault of obscurity, and thatdamagewould arguably be just as likely to happen without obscurity, when
you
have an incompetent sysadmin plus inadequate documentation.And before we meander off into an endless debate about "wouldhave"and"should have", I'll point out that all that is irrelevant.Obscurityadds far more complexity than it affords protection, and no
amount
ofafter the fact tail chasing can change the fact that this is abadthing at its core.Another broad, unsupportable generalization. Tell me how
something
like changing an FTP banner adds prohibitively costly complexity. Obscurity includes a lot of different things.This is the brittleness experts warn you about. It's a real lifeissue,not some theoretical mumbo-jumbo. By performing tasks in"nonstandard"ways you're as likely to confound the good guys as the bad. Notonlydoes obscurity not work, if it has any real effect at all it's more likely to be a negative one than not. :(Again, quantitative risk assessment comes to the rescue. Riskassessment is an example of theory that is useful in the real world. When using risk assessment to evaluate whether or not a
countermeasure
is beneficial, you quantify and compare the amount that risks go upanddown. You are not using or demonstrating mathematics when you state that the increased risk/cost of obscurity's complexity outweighs the other security risks that obscurity decreases. Are you jumping to conclusions, or do you have data to show that proves that in most
all
environments, systems and obscurity-related countermeasures,There may be brief respites and fluctuations, but they're invariably discovered and quite often attacked even harder than services on standard ports, for obvious reasons.I don't see how that's very likely. Putting hundreds of thousandsofservers on the same nonstandard port would not be a goodimplementationof obscurity. Attacking a poor implementation of anything is notreallyrelevant to whether or not a good implementation of it has merit.Besides, unless you're talking hundreds of thousands of systemsusingthe same non-standard port, you're still pretty much talking about determined human attackers. I thought I made it clear that
obscurity
isnot intended as a countermeasure to determined human attackers,
social
engineering, earthquakes, etc.kind regards, Karl Levinson http://securityadmin.info
Any views expressed in this message are those of the individual sender, except where the sender specifically states them to be the views of Crane Group
Current thread:
- Re: Re: Concepts: Security and Obscurity, (continued)
- Re: Re: Concepts: Security and Obscurity TheGesus (Apr 17)
- RE: Concepts: Security and Obscurity Craig Wright (Apr 17)
- RE: Re: Concepts: Security and Obscurity Craig Wright (Apr 17)
- Re: Re: Concepts: Security and Obscurity TheGesus (Apr 17)
- Re: Re: Concepts: Security and Obscurity levinson_k (Apr 17)
- RE: RE: Re: Concepts: Security and Obscurity Craig Wright (Apr 17)
- RE: Re: Concepts: Security and Obscurity Nhon Yeung (Apr 17)
- RE: Concepts: Security and Obscurity Craig Wright (Apr 17)
- RE: Re: Concepts: Security and Obscurity Craig Wright (Apr 17)
- RE: Concepts: Security and Obscurity Craig Wright (Apr 17)
- RE: Re: Concepts: Security and Obscurity Craig Wright (Apr 17)
- RE: Concepts: Security and Obscurity Craig Wright (Apr 19)
- Re: Re: Concepts: Security and Obscurity Lord Bane (Apr 23)