Bugtraq mailing list archives

Cisco IOS ICMP redirect DoS - Cisco's response


From: Damir Rajnovic <gaus () cisco com>
Date: Tue, 21 May 2002 18:45:40 +0100

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----

Hello,

We can confirm the finding made by FX () phenoelit de. This issue
is assigned Cisco bug ID CSCdx32056. The fix has been developed and
it is being committed into all affected releases.

The situation in Cisco IOS 12.x code is that the redirect cache will only 
grow if "ip routing" is disabled. The Cisco IOS 11.x code will populate 
the redirect cache ignoring the state of the "ip routing". The redirect
cache is fixed in size and an entry timeout is four hours.

By filling the redirect cache the memory is consumed. If the device 
is already low on memory that may cause further irregularities in 
the device's performance. Effects can vary, some of them can be:
new routes can not be learned, new MAC entries might not be added,
Telnet session might not be established, new CDP entries might not be
added. Depending on the exact configuration and circumstances, the
device may become totally unresponsive. The device should recover by 
itself after the four hours when the entries will start to timeout.

The workaround for users running Cisco IOS 11.x code is to block all ICMP
redirect messages that are sent to the router itself. That can be
accomplished this way:

 router(config)#access-list 101 deny icmp any host <device_IP> redirect
 .... (the rest of the access-list 101)
 router(config)#interface eth0
 router(config-if)#ip access-group 101 in

This example will block all ICMP packets, sent to the router itself,
coming from the eth0 interface. All transit ICMP redirect packets will
be allowed through.

Although, Cisco IOS 12.x code is less exposed we recommend to block all 
ICMP redirect packets sent to the device itself.

Gaus 

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: PGP 6.5.3

iQEVAwUBPOqHtw/VLJ+budTTAQFsvwf/bsR/O6QMhPjxr8sGtQJ58Xr/EC1WkiQn
H0jIPGsma9wv5F4hWlpjRiZfVX9GfEoLs8yrknBWXQ08cwB+TizzsSdUVnQXkp4z
6gYzHymdSbvZW/pSJyPa4J0r80MoVN8qOgavD6iCbvlT8GA67lS13YdLHDYos2cP
3c8B8UwXGiOdCJQAI1UY2gg592owahSjXRaTwStitGiwmRuhKDQE0sqWDN1h0YPw
B85QJYpds2HrsC31tYO3P0rocToZFvUPA4zd5MaaqZ4gbdlTZDU5p0ktDbnRJZy/
KAfm/YV9yQIFjJzUzmcy7iZj+09pr/qNocvAvTw24CGcxGPXX+wDow==
=y3UB
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
==============
Damir Rajnovic <psirt () cisco com>, PSIRT Incident Manager, Cisco Systems
<http://www.cisco.com/go/psirt>      Telephone: +44 7715 546 033
200 Longwater Avenue, Green Park, Reading, Berkshire RG2 6GB, GB
==============
There is no insolvable problems. 
The question is can you accept the solution? 


Current thread: