[ale] TCP_MD5

Chris Fowler cfowler at outpostsentinel.com
Thu Aug 8 18:00:10 EDT 2013


I received an email in regards to a Linux system I have installed:
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Enable TCP MD5 Signatures
Estimated time: 4 hours

Enable the TCP MD5 signature option as documented in RFC 2385. It was 
designed to reduce the danger from certain security attacks
on BGP, such as TCP resets.

This will address the following issue: TCP Sequence Number Approximation 
Vulnerability (tcp-seq-num-approximation).
Locate and fix vulnerable traffic inspection devices along the
route to the target

Estimated time: 12 hours
In many situations, target systems are, by themselves, patched or 
otherwise unaffected by this vulnerability. In certain configurations,
however, unaffected systems can be made vulnerable if the path between 
an attacker and the target system contains an affected and
unpatched network device such as a firewall or router and that device is 
responsible for handling TCP connections for the target. In this
case, locate and apply remediation steps for network devices along the 
route that are affected.
This will address the following issue: TCP Sequence Number Approximation 
Vulnerability (tcp-seq-num-approximation).
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Kernel Version: 2.6.38

In the kernel I have this enabled:
CONFIG_TCP_MD5SIG=y

It seems to me that this must be enabled for each application via the 
setsockopt(2) using the TCP_MD5SIG option.  For the programs I have 
installed I would need to modify them and recompile.

Is this correct or is there a way to enable this on all TCP sockets?

Chris




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