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    DNS Attacks From Foreign IP Addesses

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved Firewalling
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    • johnpozJ
      johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator
      last edited by

      If its public facing - then your going to have allow connections..  Why would you block people from doing queries to your nameserver for a public domain?

      I am confused to why you would want to block someone from doing a query to your public name server?  Do you feel this is some sort of dns attack?  If you feel its an attack, again a sniff of the traffic between you and the IPs would be helpful - they could simply being doing queries to your domain.

      that state you posted from what your xx out, I have to assume that is your IP.  So that state is from your box to that public IP.  So is your name server also use for recursive lookups?

      Do you allow queries for domains that your not authoritative for?  Normally this is bad practice for a public facing server that is authoritative for zones.

      For example
      udp 68.180.131.16:53 <- 192.168.1.7:43101 SINGLE:MULTIPLE

      I just did a query from a box on my network to ns1.yahoo.com which is that IP.

      ;; Query time: 20 msec
      ;; SERVER: 68.180.131.16#53(68.180.131.16)

      So you can see my state above.   The direction of the arrow is from MY ip to that public nameserver to port:53

      In your state that looks like your server talking to that 46.23.64.195 IP  Which looks like http://forum.kazahstanki.com/ to me.  when I look up that IP http://www.robtex.com/ip/46.23.64.195.html#ip

      Now I show that also the IP for www.kazahstanki.com – which be warned looks to be a adult related site.  Not blocked by my work filters ;) hehehe

      For all we know someone is posting on that site with a signature pointing to something in one of your public domains, so that your getting a lot of queries for the record.  Again a sniff will give you lots of info to work with.  On pfsense do a capture under diag for port 53, and take a look at what is the traffic actually is.

      If you just looking to adjust the timeouts for states.  Yes they can be adjusted - what do you have your firewall set to in advanced, firewall optimization? normal, conservative, aggressive, high latency?  I am set to normal, and show these as the state timeouts

      [2.1-BETA0][admin@pfsense.local.lan]/root(1): pfctl -s t
      tcp.first                   120s
      tcp.opening                  30s
      tcp.established           86400s
      tcp.closing                 900s
      tcp.finwait                  45s
      tcp.closed                   90s
      tcp.tsdiff                   30s
      udp.first                    60s
      udp.single                   30s
      udp.multiple                 60s

      icmp.first                   20s
      icmp.error                   10s
      other.first                  60s
      other.single                 30s
      other.multiple               60s
      frag                         30s
      interval                     10s
      adaptive.start            58200 states
      adaptive.end             116400 states
      src.track                     0s

      But since you say your running a public facing dns - its going to get lots of traffic I would assume, depending on the domain(s) in question being hosted on it.

      But to answer your question directly - just putting in the block would not clear the state table.  Put in your block, and then flush your states and then you should block after you clear the states.

      Also keep in mind if this server is doing recursive for say your local users – that could generate all kinds of dns traffic.  Does your name server just forward, or does it do lookups from roots?  Dns can generate lots of weird traffic from all over the globe ;)  Keep in mind allowing recursive lookups from public is not safe practice - this can be used for simple dos attacks to take down your dns.  Not to that big of deal if you only allow recursive from your own users.  But I would look to make sure you have a very valid reason to allow recursive from public.  And going to have to be appropriately sized for the amount of traffic running public dns can generate.  Also look to what your TTLs are set to.  Low TTLs can generate a storm of traffic depending on the popularity of the domains being hosted.

      An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools
      If you get confused: Listen to the Music Play
      Please don't Chat/PM me for help, unless mod related
      SG-4860 24.11 | Lab VMs 2.8, 24.11

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      • Y
        YourComputerShop
        last edited by

        First of all thank you so much for taking the time to reply lol I know enough about networking to be dangerous  ;D

        If its public facing - then your going to have allow connections..  Why would you block people from doing queries to your nameserver for a public domain?

        I am confused to why you would want to block someone from doing a query to your public name server?  Do you feel this is some sort of dns attack?  If you feel its an attack, again a sniff of the traffic between you and the IPs would be helpful - they could simply being doing queries to your domain.

        The connections I'm thinking of blocking are originating from a handful of public hosts which are sending me constant flow of DNS requests. Which I believe is some type of attack due to the constancy and amount

        that state you posted from what your xx out, I have to assume that is your IP.  So that state is from your box to that public IP.  So is your name server also use for recursive lookups?
        No the server has been locked down regarding recursive lookups and i've maid the suggested DDOS registry fixes

        Do you allow queries for domains that your not authoritative for?  Normally this is bad practice for a public facing server that is authoritative for zones.
        No only domain which we host for people

        For example
        udp    68.180.131.16:53 <- 192.168.1.7:43101    SINGLE:MULTIPLE

        Here is my States Table you can see multiple and multiple:

        udp 46.23.64.195:53 <- 83.166.162.21:53 MULTIPLE:MULTIPLE
        udp 83.166.162.21:53 -> 46.23.64.195:53 MULTIPLE:MULTIPLE
        udp 83.166.162.21:53 <- 193.188.101.168:53 MULTIPLE:MULTIPLE
        udp 193.188.101.168:53 -> 83.166.162.21:53 MULTIPLE:MULTIPLE

        83.166.162.21 is our DN server.

        I just did a query from a box on my network to ns1.yahoo.com which is that IP.

        ;; Query time: 20 msec
        ;; SERVER: 68.180.131.16#53(68.180.131.16)

        So you can see my state above.  The direction of the arrow is from MY ip to that public nameserver to port:53

        In your state that looks like your server talking to that 46.23.64.195 IP  Which looks like http://forum.kazahstanki.com/ to me.  when I look up that IP http://www.robtex.com/ip/46.23.64.195.html#ip

        Now I show that also the IP for www.kazahstanki.com – which be warned looks to be a adult related site.  Not blocked by my work filters  hehehe
        lol save that URL for future testing purposes!  ;D

        For all we know someone is posting on that site with a signature pointing to something in one of your public domains, so that your getting a lot of queries for the record.  Again a sniff will give you lots of info to work with.  On pfsense do a capture under diag for port 53, and take a look at what is the traffic actually is.
        Get me their home town i'll pay them a visit!
        I ran wireshark on the DN Server and it's response after request after response after request and so on….... from the said host addresses

        If you just looking to adjust the timeouts for states.  Yes they can be adjusted - what do you have your firewall set to in advanced, firewall optimization? normal, conservative, aggressive, high latency?  I am set to normal, and show these as the state timeouts

        [2.1-BETA0][admin@pfsense.local.lan]/root(1): pfctl -s t
        tcp.first                  120s
        tcp.opening                  30s
        tcp.established          86400s
        tcp.closing                900s
        tcp.finwait                  45s
        tcp.closed                  90s
        tcp.tsdiff                  30s
        udp.first                    60s
        udp.single                  30s
        udp.multiple                60s
        icmp.first                  20s
        icmp.error                  10s
        other.first                  60s
        other.single                30s
        other.multiple              60s
        frag                        30s
        interval                    10s
        adaptive.start            58200 states
        adaptive.end            116400 states
        src.track                    0s

        But since you say your running a public facing dns - its going to get lots of traffic I would assume, depending on the domain(s) in question being hosted on it.

        But to answer your question directly - just putting in the block would not clear the state table.  Put in your block, and then flush your states and then you should block after you clear the states.

        Also keep in mind if this server is doing recursive for say your local users – that could generate all kinds of dns traffic.  Does your name server just forward, or does it do lookups from roots?  Dns can generate lots of weird traffic from all over the globe  Keep in mind allowing recursive lookups from public is not safe practice - this can be used for simple dos attacks to take down your dns.  Not to that big of deal if you only allow recursive from your own users.  But I would look to make sure you have a very valid reason to allow recursive from public.  And going to have to be appropriately sized for the amount of traffic running public dns can generate.  Also look to what your TTLs are set to.  Low TTLs can generate a storm of traffic depending on the popularity of the domains being hosted.
        No I'm not using the server for any other resolution just the DNS for clients Domain Names no internal resolutions/recursions

        Also I'm going to "Reset The States" now see if the IP's are blocked afterwards! wish me luck…....and again thanks for taking the time :)

        Phil

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        • Y
          YourComputerShop
          last edited by

          Well the blocking thing works thanks :) one thing to watch for is  "I've already added that IP Address!!!…...........oh........wait............no...that one's slightly different!" :)

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          • johnpozJ
            johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator
            last edited by

            "I ran wireshark on the DN Server and it's response after request after response after request and so on….... from the said host addresses"

            But were they legit requests?  What is the TTL of the response - one reason I can think of what your saying was happening would be a very short TTL.

            Was it the same request over and over again?  Or different requests?  I am very curious to that traffic - if you don't want to post public would you mind sending me a PM.

            I am glad you got what you wanted blocked to work - but blocking IPs from doing queries to your public DNS could be causing failure in legit use.  Without seeing what was being asked and what the response was its hard to tell.

            edit:  BTW I just did a few queries to your dns IP you posted.  Not really blocking recursive the way you would want.. I ask it for say www.yahoo.com and it returns the root hints, which is

            MSG SIZE  rcvd: 510

            With a status of NO ERROR... But as example when I guery say ns1.google.com for www.yahoo.com I get a REFUSED STATUS and msg size returned is only

            ; <<>> DiG 9.8.1-P1 <<>> @ns1.google.com www.yahoo.com
            ; (1 server found)
            ;; global options: +cmd
            ;; Got answer:
            ;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: REFUSED, id: 43576
            ;; flags: qr rd; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 0, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 0
            ;; WARNING: recursion requested but not available

            ;; QUESTION SECTION:
            ;www.yahoo.com.                IN      A

            ;; Query time: 38 msec
            ;; SERVER: 216.239.32.10#53(216.239.32.10)
            ;; WHEN: Wed Jul 11 15:44:56 2012
            ;; MSG SIZE  rcvd: 31

            You might want to look into how to returned refused if your not going to allow recursive queries.

            An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools
            If you get confused: Listen to the Music Play
            Please don't Chat/PM me for help, unless mod related
            SG-4860 24.11 | Lab VMs 2.8, 24.11

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            • Y
              YourComputerShop
              last edited by

              Yes I did a little more "Digging" ( Linux people will find that amusing ) yesterday added the NS IP to my local PC's name server list.  I didn't realise that the server would resolve external hosts even with Recursion Off lol, it just uses the Root Hints instead :) so i've now removed the Hints from the server and you get server fail now instead  ::) ooops

              Still getting random connections though which are taking up precious bandwidth and CPU :(

              It seems that all legit DNS requests will connect as you said before with a: SINGLE>MULTIPLE 53 and then a MULTIPLE <single 53="" response.<br="">All of the dodgy connections are using MULTIPLE:MULTIPLE do you think pFsense and detect MULTIPLE:MULTIPLE udp 53 connections and block them :)  ?

              I will look at TTL values not changed them from MS defaults.</single>

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              • johnpozJ
                johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator
                last edited by

                Like I said running a dns, your going to get some crazy connections.

                More than happy to help you figure out what it is, be it legit, noise, etc.  Should it be blocked, if so what is best way.

                Can you PM a sniff/capture of this dns traffic your seeing, or email it to me - I have PM'd you my normal email address.

                BTW - yup repeated my www.yahoo.com test to your dns and SERVFAIL ;)

                As to the multiple:multiple, where did you get that idea.  All that is telling you is the state of the timeouts for the state.  You have multiple packets on that state and side is how I read that.  Does not mean its a bad one??  I have lots of states in that mode under udp, plenty for p2p - but then again I do host a dns server on this connection.  But I do host ntp

                udp 207.179.124.86:123 -> 192.168.1.40:123 MULTIPLE:MULTIPLE
                udp 192.168.1.40:123 <- 24.13.xxx.xxx:123 <- 50.104.241.182:50054 MULTIPLE:MULTIPLE
                udp 50.104.241.182:50054 -> 192.168.1.40:123 MULTIPLE:MULTIPLE
                udp 192.168.1.40:123 <- 24.13.xxx.xxx:123 <- 63.224.174.10:281 MULTIPLE:MULTIPLE
                udp 63.224.174.10:281 -> 192.168.1.40:123 MULTIPLE:MULTIPLE
                udp 192.168.1.40:123 <- 24.13.xxx.xxx:123 <- 173.216.5.55:123 MULTIPLE:MULTIPLE

                Part of ntp.pool.org on both ipv4 and ipv6 – so there is a bit of traffic there from all over the planet.  Notice its in multiple:multiple

                An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools
                If you get confused: Listen to the Music Play
                Please don't Chat/PM me for help, unless mod related
                SG-4860 24.11 | Lab VMs 2.8, 24.11

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                • N
                  novacoresystems
                  last edited by

                  You guys are making this WAY too complicated.. lol. Install pfblocker on the firewall and block whatever countries you like from accessing your network/DNS server.

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                  • johnpozJ
                    johnpoz LAYER 8 Global Moderator
                    last edited by

                    Too complicated?  His box is talking to dns servers..  That is not complicated.  He just did not understand what a pool is and that yes it could be anywhere.

                    You didn't even read the thread did you.

                    An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools
                    If you get confused: Listen to the Music Play
                    Please don't Chat/PM me for help, unless mod related
                    SG-4860 24.11 | Lab VMs 2.8, 24.11

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                    • J
                      joshfokis
                      last edited by

                      I know this is a little late but a bit of good info is if its 53 udp its a query but if its 53 tcp its a zone transfer and that is bad. so you will just want to watch out for that from any ips. I just thought you could use this info.

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                      • Cry HavokC
                        Cry Havok
                        last edited by

                        DNS over TCP isn't just zone transfers - TCP is simply used where the response is too big to fit in a single UDP packet. That isn't uncommon with things like large MX records for instance.

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                        • J
                          joshfokis
                          last edited by

                          @Cry:

                          DNS over TCP isn't just zone transfers - TCP is simply used where the response is too big to fit in a single UDP packet. That isn't uncommon with things like large MX records for instance.

                          true but just trying to state that might want to be more cautious of tcp connections. but most of the stuff going around the net are more or less just script kiddies, and the white noise of the internet.

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