Generally, hackers are unorganized but that doesn't mean we can't perform an analysis of hacking. The method we will use is one that was pioneered in World War II by the RAND coporation. If we try to understand hacking as an operations research problem then we can get it onto a firm, even mathematical foundation. The goal of the hacker is to maximize some set of stated goals (Theft, Revenge etc.) while at the same time minimizing his risk. The defender, on the other hand, is looking to amplify the the risk to the hacker while minimizing his exposure to potential abuse.
Consider making an assault on, say, Normandy or Kuwait, a hacker is presented with many of the same problems. How is he to maximize his chance of success while minimizing his risk. Each action he can perform is characterized by a signal that the defender may or may not be able to detect. Therefore, one of his goals must be to minimize the signal he sends to the defender. We caveat this statement because the attacker may decide that stealth costs too much and his real goal is better served by a frontal assault. Even so, this choice simply means that the defender recieves the signal at full strength right from the start so the same methods we outline for amplifying and detecting attack signals will apply.
In order to begin an analysis of hacking we need to break it up into phases and then run our min/max analysis on each phase. Hacking, like any other attack, can be characterized by the following phases.
The remainder of the paper considers each of these phases in turn. We also begin to give a method whereby we can assign weights to our matrix variables values according to their values leading to a stated goal.
METHOD Asset Signal Comment
1.1 DNS nh(u) h 1.2 INTERNIC (INer/DDN) nh(u) l 1.3 Social engineering 1.3.1 Telephone book u l 1.3.2 call personel u m 1.3.3 Dumpster diving nhup m 1.3.4 Def. marketing p m-l 1.3.5 Att. marketing p h 1.3.6 Knob rattling nhup h 1.3.7 Help desk requests u l 1.3.8 Admins name u l 1.3.9 Financial statements nhup l 1.3.10 News clippings nhup l 1.4 Hacker BBS 1.5 Machine Based Data Collection 1.5.1 Search news postings nhups l 1.5.2 War dialing hs m AIO5, toneloc 1.5.3 Info bots nhups m 1.5.4 Satan nhups h 1.5.5 DNS nhu l 1.5.6 WHOIS nhu l 1.5.7 Ping hn h 1.5.8 Finger hnu h finger @@espn.com 1.5.9 Traceroute nh m tcpdump ethload sniffers 1.5.10 Net managers w/ host disc.nh h Scotty HPOpenview 1.5.11 Ether host prob nhs h Broadcasts 1.5.12 Sniffers nhups l
This is the heart of the operations research approach to hacking. Here the hacker plays out the what-if scenarios away from the prying eyes of the defender. By assigning a value to each of the goals (e.g. Curiosity = 5, Revenge = 1, Money = 0) and assigning a cost to each method we can minimize the signal, maximize the result, and minimize the cost.
We do not have time nor can we set up the mathematics for min/max problems here but the interested student can pickup a testbook on the subject of operations research and apply the mathematics to the analysis generated here. The columns of this table are given by:
Motivation Motivation Code Signal Comment
2.1 Establish goals 2.1.1 Curiosity/inteligence p m 2.1.2 Competetive edge/ corp espionage md h 2.1.3 Revenge - disguntled employee... pd h 2.1.4 Vandalism pd m 2.1.5 Bragging pd h 2.1.6 Blackmail pmd m 2.1.7 Theft m m-h 2.1.8 Embezzlement m l-m 2.2 Inventory resources 2.2.1 Create inventory xxx l-h 2.2.2 Assign inventory cost - N.B. here code = cost 2.2.2.1 Invent h l 2.2.2.2 Trade m h 2.2.2.3 Purchase m m 2.2.2.4 Steal l h 2.2.2.5 Freeware/shareware l l 2.2.3 Fill inventory 2.2.3.1 Invent h l 2.2.3.1.1 Design Tools 2.2.3.1.1.1 Stack smashing 2.2.3.1.1.2 Race conditions 2.2.3.1.1.3 Lying (resource swapping) 2.2.3.1.1.4 Backdoor 2.2.3.1.1.5 Bruteforce 2.2.3.2 Trade 2.2.3.2.1 Hacker Groups l m 2.2.3.3 Purchase 2.2.3.3.1 Consultants h l 2.2.3.3.2 Hacker CDROMs l l l0pht 2.2.3.4 Steal 2.2.3.4.1 Hacker Groups m h 2.2.3.4.2 Government h h 2.2.3.4 Freeware/shareware 2.2.3.4.1 Hacker Groups l m 2.2.3.4.2 News letters l m 2.2.4 Benefits analysis - N.B. code: s = secrecy, e = effective 2.2.4.2 Invent es n/a 2.2.4.2 Trade e l 2.2.4.3 Purchase e l 2.2.4.4 Steal es m 2.2.4.5 Free/shareware es l 2.2.4 Assign inventory benefit xxx l 2.2.5 Cost benefit analysis xxx l 2.4 Make a battle plan xxx l 2.4.1 Fill min/max matrix 2.4.2 Run min/max matrix 2.4.3 Review results and run min/max matrix again
Here we try to get onto a host, ususally through a network. So we concentrate on network hacks in this section.
METHOD Access Signal Comment
3.1 Brute force u h 3.1.1 ftp u h 3.1.2 telnet u h 3.1.3 pop2/3 u h 3.2.4 rlogin u h 3.1.5 http u h 3.1.6 sql u h 3.1.7 kerberos u h 3.1.8 smnp an m 3.2 Sniffing ua l 3.3 Spoofing 3.3.1 DNS h m 3.3.2 IP h m 3.3.3 Kerberos IV hua l 3.3.4 smtp hua m 3.3.5 snmp v1 ha l 3.4 Stack smashing 3.4.1 SMTP ha l-m 3.4.2 Named/DNS " " 3.4.3 pop " " 3.4.4 http " " 3.5 Race 3.5.1 NFS hua m-h 3.5.2 Kerberos (all versions) " " 3.5.3 All ticket authentication progs " " 3.6 Back Door 3.6.1 Sendmail / wiz ha l 3.6.2 Debug stuff 3.6.2.1 Stack smashing hua m 3.6.2.2 Race " " 3.6.2.3 Brute " " 3.6.2.4 Back door " " 3.6.2.5 Spoofing " "
We continue to use our familar table format:
METHOD Access Signal Comments
4.1 Be able to get back 4.1.1 Passwd cracking 4.1.1.1 Crack hua m 4.1.1.2 Crypt hua h 4.1.2 Trojan horses 4.1.2.1 login hua m 4.1.2.2 r commands " m 4.1.2.3 telnet " m 4.1.2.4 all inetd.conf files " m 4.1.2.5 kernal loadable modules hua l i.e. device driver trojans 4.1.3 Config files 4.1.3.1 .rhosts " m 4.1.3.2 host.equiv " " 4.1.3.3 etc. " " 4.2 Become admin 4.2.1 Stack - spoits 4.2.1.1 librar sploits a l getopt on Solaris. In libc.so 4.2.1.2 Most network attacks a m mail, DNS, etc. 4.2.2 Race 4.2.2.1 expreserve a l 4.2.2.2 .rexecd a l 4.2.2.3 cron a m 4.2.2.4 any simlink+suid files au m 4.2.3 Brute 4.2.3.1 all networked files au m 4.2.3.2 crack decryption au m 4.2.4 Back door 4.2.4.1 networking "debugs" au h 4.2.4.2 OS "debugs" au h 4.2.4.3 application "debugs" au m 4.2.4.4 bios calls au l 4.2.4.5 service maint passwd a l (unisys, ami, all routers) 4.2.5 Spoofing 4.2.5.1 all TCP/IP networking hua m 4.2.5.2 symlinks ua l 4.2.5.3 tmp files ua l 4.2.5.4 config files (cron) ua m Cukoos egg 4.3 Cover our tracks 4.3.1 Fix logs 4.3.1.1 syslog (syslog.conf) a h 4.3.1.2 messages (dmesg) " " 4.3.1.3 utmp " " 4.3.1.4 wtmp " " 4.3.1.5 history of compromised " " accoun 4.3.1.6 audit.log " " 4.3.1.7 /var/log authlog " " 4.3.2 Fix the OS 4.3.2.1 Fix loadable modules " l 4.3.2.2 Fix ".o" files " l 4.3.2.3 Bugs in OS " l eg.Sparc floating point exception bug