IP Attacks..

You know that you have taken a great course when you look forward to do each project and the assignments given... Internet Security is one such course. I was supposed to stress test Minix 3 and Linux for vulnerabilies. Specifically I had to attack the ARP, IP and ICMP protocols and find out the vulnerabilities if any. I always thought that this was a waste of time, why on earth will these attacks work?? after all.. these protocols have been there for more than three decades.. how wrong was I!!... This is what I found out :

Attacks	Minix 3	Linux
ARP Cache Attack	yes	yes
IP DoS Attack	no	no
IP Fragmentation Attack	no	no
ICMP Attacks
Ping of death	no	no
Smurf Attack	yes	yes
Destination Unreachable	yes	no
Source Quench	no	somewhat
Redirect	yes	yes

Out of all the attacks, I find ARP cache poisoning, ICMP redirect and Smurf attacks quite slick. There is no simple method to detect these attacks and anyone can do them (at least you can after reading this blog entry). You don't have to be a cracker with a brain of a rocket scientist to use the publicly available tools.

I used the netwox tool box to conduct the above attacks. Its an amazing collection of 221 tools, each of which can be customized to bring even the most monstrous server to its knees. You can read my documentation of this attack here. This attack reveals some really nasty design flaws in these protocols, sadly changing them means changing the software on a billion computers(i totally made that number up but you get the point right??) on this planet.
Also I must say that out of all the FOSS OSs I have used, I find Minix's source code most well written. If you are a kernel hacker and an object oriented developer at the same time, you will surely appreciate how well written the code is. I find it better than FreeBSD and certainly better than Linux. The Microkernel implementation would also rock your world.
Lastly please don't try these on public networks... your arrest warrant will be stamped before you can reboot your computer. I tried these on my own computers behind a NAT. And BTW.. if you are using Windows, be ready for a bsod.