| Name |
TCP ACK Ping |
|
| Likelyhood of attack |
Typical severity |
| High |
Low |
|
| Summary |
An adversary sends a TCP segment with the ACK flag set to a remote host for the purpose of determining if the host is alive. This is one of several TCP 'ping' types. The RFC 793 expected behavior for a service is to respond with a RST 'reset' packet to any unsolicited ACK segment that is not part of an existing connection. So by sending an ACK segment to a port, the adversary can identify that the host is alive by looking for a RST packet. Typically, a remote server will respond with a RST regardless of whether a port is open or closed. In this way, TCP ACK pings cannot discover the state of a remote port because the behavior is the same in either case. The firewall will look up the ACK packet in its state-table and discard the segment because it does not correspond to any active connection. A TCP ACK Ping can be used to discover if a host is alive via RST response packets sent from the host. |
| Prerequisites |
The ability to send an ACK packet to a remote host and identify the response. Creating the ACK packet without building a full connection requires the use of raw sockets. As a result, it is not possible to send a TCP ACK ping from some systems (Windows XP SP 2) without the use of third-party packet drivers like Winpcap. On other systems (BSD, Linux) administrative privileges are required in order to write to the raw socket. The target must employ a stateless firewall that lacks a rule set that rejects unsolicited ACK packets. The adversary requires the ability to craft custom TCP ACK segments for use during network reconnaissance. Sending an ACK ping requires the ability to access "raw sockets" in order to create the packets with direct access to the packet header. |
| Solutions | Leverage stateful firewalls that allow for the rejection of a packet that is not part of an existing connection. |
| Related Weaknesses |
|
CWE ID
|
Description
|
| CWE-200 |
Exposure of Sensitive Information to an Unauthorized Actor |
|
| Related CAPECS |
|
CAPEC ID
|
Description
|
| CAPEC-292 |
An adversary sends a probe to an IP address to determine if the host is alive. Host discovery is one of the earliest phases of network reconnaissance. The adversary usually starts with a range of IP addresses belonging to a target network and uses various methods to determine if a host is present at that IP address. Host discovery is usually referred to as 'Ping' scanning using a sonar analogy. The goal is to send a packet through to the IP address and solicit a response from the host. As such, a 'ping' can be virtually any crafted packet whatsoever, provided the adversary can identify a functional host based on its response. An attack of this nature is usually carried out with a 'ping sweep,' where a particular kind of ping is sent to a range of IP addresses. |
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