Suricata Really Annoying, Blocking Everything

downtown

I just set up Suricata recently on my pfSense box. I set it up to use the ETOpen Rules and the Snort VRT Rules. I ticked the box for Use rules from one of three pre-defined Snort IPS policies, and used the Connected profile. So far, I find it really annoying. It seems to be blocking all kinda of stuff that it should not. I open up a terminal and ssh to my web server in the cloud - boom - blocked by ET SCAN Potential SSH Scan OUTBOUND and eventually SURICATA STREAM excessive retransmissions. I try to connect to a client's pfSense box via remote, and boom, blocked. VPN connections: blocked. Some web sites: blocked. It is very counter-productive to be constantly managing this. I don't want to sit here and passlist the entire Internet. Am I missing something?

tipiewot

@downtown:

I just set up Suricata recently on my pfSense box. I set it up to use the ETOpen Rules and the Snort VRT Rules. I ticked the box for Use rules from one of three pre-defined Snort IPS policies, and used the Connected profile. So far, I find it really annoying. It seems to be blocking all kinda of stuff that it should not. I open up a terminal and ssh to my web server in the cloud - boom - blocked by ET SCAN Potential SSH Scan OUTBOUND and eventually SURICATA STREAM excessive retransmissions. I try to connect to a client's pfSense box via remote, and boom, blocked. VPN connections: blocked. Some web sites: blocked. It is very counter-productive to be constantly managing this. I don't want to sit here and passlist the entire Internet. Am I missing something?

Hi downtown,

A short answer : Suricata (or snort, or whatever IPS) is not an automatic "plug and play" toy, and you'll need days and weeks before being able to have a stable and linear behavior.
First of all, DO NOT activate blocking during the first steps. You will have to filter alerts and fill pass lists (time consuming, yes, no other way).
Try to enable only a few rulesets first (dshield, CINS), check for alerts. Then add other needed rulesets, and check again, step by step. Add undesirable actions in suppress list.

"stream-events" has a strange behavior for me too. I won't tell you not to activate this ruleset at all, but… maybe.

Hope it helps :)

Pierre

mind12

Hi,

if you use the Inline IPS mode there won't be any blocking by default only alerts. This way you have time to configure blocking on specific categories or rules in the SID mgmt menu using dropsid.conf file.
So far I use these in my dropsid.conf and I'm satisfied with the results. Feel free to modify for your needs:

snort_
emerging-drop
emerging-botcc.portgrouped
emerging-botcc
emerging-ciarmy
emerging-compromised
emerging-dshield
emerging-tor
emerging-worm
emerging-trojan
emerging-mobile_malware
emerging-malware

1:2016149       # ET INFO Session Traversal Utilities for NAT (STUN Binding Request)
1:2016150       # ET INFO Session Traversal Utilities for NAT (STUN Binding Response)
1:2012247  	# ET P2P BTWebClient UA uTorrent in use
1:2221002  	# SURICATA HTTP request field missing colon
1:2221013  	# SURICATA HTTP request header invalid
1:2016777  	# ET INFO HTTP Request to a *.pw domain
#1:2013031       # ET POLICY Python-urllib/ Suspicious User Agent
1:2014701  	# ET DNS Non-DNS or Non-Compliant DNS traffic on DNS port Opcode 6 or 7 set
1:2014703  	# ET DNS Non-DNS or Non-Compliant DNS traffic on DNS port Reserved Bit Set

dcol

I also had freezing when Inline was enabled. Worked ok Legacy mode. Works in the dev version 2.4.0, but no pass list is available.

downtown

Thanks for the helpful replies. Will work on it… :)

tipiewot

Hi all !

Finally the Inline mode is clearly unable to go to production environment for the moment :(, despite the fact it is an enormous step ahead. It will be a strong IPS soon, no doubt, but it is not stable enough yet.

I also have hard blocking issues.

Among them :
1) Only bge (Broadcom) NICs seem to be able to handle Inline mode. em (Intel) NICs block all traffic, even without any rule or droplist enabled on them (no alert, but no traffic passing). Other Threads and post quote this issue. Tuning the NICs didn't fix anything.
2a) Enabling rules on bge cards generate alerts (works fine for IDS, it seems).
2b) Enabling also a droplist fires alerts correctly (alerts in red, so works fine for first part of IPS)
2c) Pass list are not available anymore, OK. But suppress lists still exist and should work as before (in legacy mode, I mean)… While trying to use a Suppress list to exclude some traffic for specific hosts, this trafic is completely blocked, without any alert (black or red), whereas it should pass silently. I managed to isolate the problem with my mail server, where the ET POLICY Inbound Frequent Emails - Possible Spambot Inbound, for an example. Removing all rules and re anble them didn't fix (as suggested in oter posts). Re install didn't fix neither.
2d) Well, maybe I'll try to create custom rule linked to IP Reputation list, to workaroud the Suppress list issue. I'll post back to the forum when I'll have done this step.

However, these are too many problems to enable Inline mode for the moment. I'll go back to legacy mode.

Please understand it is not a criticism at all :D , I'm aware of the awesome job made by the devs and contibutors to pf and suricata, and I congratulate and thank them very much. Just excited to play with suricata asap, like all of us ;)

Pierre

certifiable

So what you're saying is that you don't want a job as a security analyst?

LMFAO!

We've had sourcefire (enterprise snort) in alert mode for 6 months before switching it to block. Now, please follow me everyone, on the WAN. We turned it on the WAN. So what this means is we're not intercepting our own SSH, inside our network. And the rules we turned on were "medium" security (this is an enterprise subscription), and the threats were considered "high." So that's somewhere between 5k and 7k of signatures. How many are you running? I'm sorry for laughing.

Rango

@mind12:

Hi,

if you use the Inline IPS mode there won't be any blocking by default only alerts. This way you have time to configure blocking on specific categories or rules in the SID mgmt menu using dropsid.conf file.
So far I use these in my dropsid.conf and I'm satisfied with the results. Feel free to modify for your needs:

snort_
emerging-drop
emerging-botcc.portgrouped
emerging-botcc
emerging-ciarmy
emerging-compromised
emerging-dshield
emerging-tor
emerging-worm
emerging-trojan
emerging-mobile_malware
emerging-malware

1:2016149       # ET INFO Session Traversal Utilities for NAT (STUN Binding Request)
1:2016150       # ET INFO Session Traversal Utilities for NAT (STUN Binding Response)
1:2012247  	# ET P2P BTWebClient UA uTorrent in use
1:2221002  	# SURICATA HTTP request field missing colon
1:2221013  	# SURICATA HTTP request header invalid
1:2016777  	# ET INFO HTTP Request to a *.pw domain
#1:2013031       # ET POLICY Python-urllib/ Suspicious User Agent
1:2014701  	# ET DNS Non-DNS or Non-Compliant DNS traffic on DNS port Opcode 6 or 7 set
1:2014703  	# ET DNS Non-DNS or Non-Compliant DNS traffic on DNS port Reserved Bit Set

I just copied your setup into my suricata setup. Have you found for this to be sufficient at start up or have you added more since then. Where u at now as far as rules go. I just setup suricata and disabled hardware notification rule which was pretty much flooding the log. I googled it before i did that.

mind12

Hi,

the following code is my recent configuration.
I haven't touched it for 5 months. Running without issues but be aware that this is a small home network:


GPLv2_community
snort_
emerging-drop
emerging-botcc.portgrouped
emerging-botcc
emerging-ciarmy
emerging-compromised
emerging-dshield
emerging-tor
emerging-worm
emerging-trojan
emerging-mobile_malware
emerging-malware

1:2016149       # ET INFO Session Traversal Utilities for NAT (STUN Binding Request)
1:2016150       # ET INFO Session Traversal Utilities for NAT (STUN Binding Response)
1:2012247  	# ET P2P BTWebClient UA uTorrent in use
1:2221002  	# SURICATA HTTP request field missing colon
1:2221013  	# SURICATA HTTP request header invalid
1:2016777  	# ET INFO HTTP Request to a *.pw domain
# Blocks Kodi user agent 1:2013031      # ET POLICY Python-urllib/ Suspicious User Agent
1:2014701  	# ET DNS Non-DNS or Non-Compliant DNS traffic on DNS port Opcode 6 or 7 set
1:2014703  	# ET DNS Non-DNS or Non-Compliant DNS traffic on DNS port Reserved Bit Set
1:2221030       # SURICATA HTTP METHOD terminated by non-compliant character
1:2221029       # SURICATA HTTP URI terminated by non-compliant character
1:2221031       # SURICATA HTTP Request line with leading whitespace
1:2013936       # ET POLICY SSH banner detected on TCP 443 likely proxy evasion
1:2017399  	# ET WEB_SERVER WebShell Generic eval of base64_decode
1:2012118  	# ET CURRENT_EVENTS http string in hex Likely Obfuscated Exploit Redirect
1:2011540  	# ET POLICY OpenSSL Demo CA - Internet Widgits Pty (O)
1:2012811  	# ET DNS Query to a .tk domain - Likely Hostile
1:2023472  	# ET POLICY OpenDNS IP Lookup
1:2012087  	# ET SHELLCODE Possible Call with No Offset UDP Shellcode
1:2018302  	# ET INFO Possible Phish - Mirrored Website Comment Observed
1:2015561  	# ET INFO PDF Using CCITTFax Filter
# Blocks trackers 1:2011706  	# ET P2P Bittorrent P2P Client User-Agent (uTorrent)
1:2221015  	# SURICATA HTTP Host header ambiguous
1:2221027  	# SURICATA HTTP Host part of URI is invalid
1:2025105  	# ET INFO DNS Query for Suspicious .ga Domain

Raffi_

I had similar issues when I first started using the IPS. As other stated, don't enable all categories. mind12's list seems like a good starting point for a dropsid.config file. I could be wrong, but I thought the categories in the dropsid file had to be separated with commas. I found a similar list which I copied from these forums. Also, under the WAN Categories I have the Snort IPS Policy Selection set to Balanced with the IPS Policy Mode set to Policy. Based on my understanding, doing this will set certain snort rules to drop automatically so the snort rules don't have to be specified in a dropsid file if you go that route.

bmeeks

@Raffi.:

I had similar issues when I first started using the IPS. As other stated, don't enable all categories. mind12's list seems like a good starting point for a dropsid.config file. I could be wrong, but I thought the categories in the dropsid file had to be separated with commas. I found a similar list which I copied from these forums. Also, under the WAN Categories I have the Snort IPS Policy Selection set to Balanced with the IPS Policy Mode set to Policy. Based on my understanding, doing this will set certain snort rules to drop automatically so the snort rules don't have to be specified in a dropsid file if you go that route.

All of the above statements by @Raffi are correct. The best starting point for a complete newbie to an IDS/IPS is to use the Snort rules and set the CATEGORIES tab to "IPS Policy Connectivity" and the Policy Mode to "Policy". This will set up a good starter rule set with expert-recommended rules set to DROP and some others set to just ALERT. Later, if you want to, you can up the Policy to "Balanced" to get a bit more security, but with the possibility of a few false positives now and then.

Bill

Raffi_

Thanks Bill. Most of my knowledge on this stuff is thanks to you. You laid out the information for the rest of us. Below is the dropsid.conf I'm using to add ET categories. The code uses the syntax with commas. I forget who's list this was based on so I can't give credit. For all I know, this could be based on yours Bill.

# This is the full list of ET open rules in case I want to add more of them ==> emerging-activex.rules,emerging-attack_response.rules,emerging-botcc.portgrouped.rules,emerging-botcc.rules,emerging-chat.rules,emerging-ciarmy.rules,emerging-compromised.rules,emerging-current_events.rules,emerging-deleted.rules,emerging-dns.rules,emerging-dos.rules,emerging-drop.rules,emerging-dshield.rules,emerging-exploit.rules,emerging-ftp.rules,emerging-games.rules,emerging-icmp.rules,emerging-icmp_info.rules,emerging-imap.rules,emerging-inappropriate.rules,emerging-info.rules,emerging-malware.rules,emerging-misc.rules,emerging-mobile_malware.rules,emerging-netbios.rules,emerging-p2p.rules,emerging-policy.rules,emerging-pop3.rules,emerging-rbn-malvertisers.rules,emerging-rbn.rules,emerging-rpc.rules,emerging-scada.rules,emerging-scan.rules,emerging-shellcode.rules,emerging-smtp.rules,emerging-snmp.rules,emerging-sql.rules,emerging-telnet.rules,emerging-tftp.rules,emerging-tor.rules,emerging-trojan.rules,emerging-user_agents.rules,emerging-voip.rules,emerging-web_client.rules,emerging-web_server.rules,emerging-web_specific_apps.rules,emerging-worm.rules
# Emerging Threat categories shown below will have all rules changed from "alert" to "drop"
emerging-worm,emerging-voip,emerging-snmp,emerging-scada,emerging-rpc,emerging-pop3,emerging-misc,emerging-imap,emerging-games,emerging-dos,emerging-deleted,emerging-current_events,emerging-activex,emerging-botcc,emerging-malware,emerging-mobile_malware,emerging-trojan

bmeeks

@Raffi.:

Thanks Bill. Most of my knowledge on this stuff is thanks to you. You laid out the information for the rest of us. Below is the dropsid.conf I'm using to add ET categories. The code uses the syntax with commas. I forget who's list this was based on so I can't give credit. For all I know, this could be based on yours Bill.

# This is the full list of ET open rules in case I want to add more of them ==> emerging-activex.rules,emerging-attack_response.rules,emerging-botcc.portgrouped.rules,emerging-botcc.rules,emerging-chat.rules,emerging-ciarmy.rules,emerging-compromised.rules,emerging-current_events.rules,emerging-deleted.rules,emerging-dns.rules,emerging-dos.rules,emerging-drop.rules,emerging-dshield.rules,emerging-exploit.rules,emerging-ftp.rules,emerging-games.rules,emerging-icmp.rules,emerging-icmp_info.rules,emerging-imap.rules,emerging-inappropriate.rules,emerging-info.rules,emerging-malware.rules,emerging-misc.rules,emerging-mobile_malware.rules,emerging-netbios.rules,emerging-p2p.rules,emerging-policy.rules,emerging-pop3.rules,emerging-rbn-malvertisers.rules,emerging-rbn.rules,emerging-rpc.rules,emerging-scada.rules,emerging-scan.rules,emerging-shellcode.rules,emerging-smtp.rules,emerging-snmp.rules,emerging-sql.rules,emerging-telnet.rules,emerging-tftp.rules,emerging-tor.rules,emerging-trojan.rules,emerging-user_agents.rules,emerging-voip.rules,emerging-web_client.rules,emerging-web_server.rules,emerging-web_specific_apps.rules,emerging-worm.rules
# Emerging Threat categories shown below will have all rules changed from "alert" to "drop"
emerging-worm,emerging-voip,emerging-snmp,emerging-scada,emerging-rpc,emerging-pop3,emerging-misc,emerging-imap,emerging-games,emerging-dos,emerging-deleted,emerging-current_events,emerging-activex,emerging-botcc,emerging-malware,emerging-mobile_malware,emerging-trojan

No, that's not a list I created but it is a good one. There have been several contributions submitted to the forum here by Suricata users.

Bill

goa200

@Rango:

@mind12:
Hi,

if you use the Inline IPS mode there won't be any blocking by default only alerts. This way you have time to configure blocking on specific categories or rules in the SID mgmt menu using dropsid.conf file.
So far I use these in my dropsid.conf and I'm satisfied with the results. Feel free to modify for your needs:
snort_
emerging-drop
emerging-botcc.portgrouped
emerging-botcc
emerging-ciarmy
emerging-compromised
emerging-dshield
emerging-tor
emerging-worm
emerging-trojan
emerging-mobile_malware
emerging-malware

1:2016149       # ET INFO Session Traversal Utilities for NAT (STUN Binding Request)
1:2016150       # ET INFO Session Traversal Utilities for NAT (STUN Binding Response)
1:2012247  	# ET P2P BTWebClient UA uTorrent in use
1:2221002  	# SURICATA HTTP request field missing colon
1:2221013  	# SURICATA HTTP request header invalid
1:2016777  	# ET INFO HTTP Request to a *.pw domain
#1:2013031       # ET POLICY Python-urllib/ Suspicious User Agent
1:2014701  	# ET DNS Non-DNS or Non-Compliant DNS traffic on DNS port Opcode 6 or 7 set
1:2014703  	# ET DNS Non-DNS or Non-Compliant DNS traffic on DNS port Reserved Bit Set
I just copied your setup into my suricata setup. Have you found for this to be sufficient at start up or have you added more since then. Where u at now as far as rules go. I just setup suricata and disabled hardware notification rule which was pretty much flooding the log. I googled it before i did that.

been trying to find more info regardin dropsid.conf or how to copy a setup like this. But i havnt found anything. Could anyone please point me in the right direction how you use above setup to copy it into your own suricata setup

bmeeks

@goa200:

@Rango:
@mind12:
Hi,

if you use the Inline IPS mode there won't be any blocking by default only alerts. This way you have time to configure blocking on specific categories or rules in the SID mgmt menu using dropsid.conf file.
So far I use these in my dropsid.conf and I'm satisfied with the results. Feel free to modify for your needs:
snort_
emerging-drop
emerging-botcc.portgrouped
emerging-botcc
emerging-ciarmy
emerging-compromised
emerging-dshield
emerging-tor
emerging-worm
emerging-trojan
emerging-mobile_malware
emerging-malware

1:2016149       # ET INFO Session Traversal Utilities for NAT (STUN Binding Request)
1:2016150       # ET INFO Session Traversal Utilities for NAT (STUN Binding Response)
1:2012247  	# ET P2P BTWebClient UA uTorrent in use
1:2221002  	# SURICATA HTTP request field missing colon
1:2221013  	# SURICATA HTTP request header invalid
1:2016777  	# ET INFO HTTP Request to a *.pw domain
#1:2013031       # ET POLICY Python-urllib/ Suspicious User Agent
1:2014701  	# ET DNS Non-DNS or Non-Compliant DNS traffic on DNS port Opcode 6 or 7 set
1:2014703  	# ET DNS Non-DNS or Non-Compliant DNS traffic on DNS port Reserved Bit Set
I just copied your setup into my suricata setup. Have you found for this to be sufficient at start up or have you added more since then. Where u at now as far as rules go. I just setup suricata and disabled hardware notification rule which was pretty much flooding the log. I googled it before i did that.
been trying to find more info regardin dropsid.conf or how to copy a setup like this. But i havnt found anything. Could anyone please point me in the right direction how you use above setup to copy it into your own suricata setup

Very easy. In @mind12's post click the small red "Select" link to select everything in the code box and then copy that to the clipboard using CTRL+c or whatever other shortcut your computer uses. Now go over to Suricata and open the SID MGMT tab. Click the ADD button to create a new dropsid.conf file. In the modal dialog that opens, type the list name on the top line (I suggest something like "dropsid-LAN.conf" or "dropsid-WAN.conf" depending on the interface you intend to use it with). Then paste the clipboard contents into the textarea control in the middle of the dialog using the appropriate keyboard shortcut for your computer (CTRL+v) for Windows. Click SAVE to create the new list. It will now show up along side the other sample lists on the page.

Go down to the interfaces list at the bottom of the SID MGMT page and in the row for the interface you want to assign the new dropsid.conf file to, go across to the dropsid drop-down selector and choose the just-created list. If you want to immediately apply the list to the running Suricata interface, then tick the checkbox over on the far left end of the row and then click SAVE. That's it.

You can view the result of the automatic SID MGMT operation by going to the LOGS VIEW tab, choosing the interface where you assigned the new list, and then selecting the "sid_changes.log" in the drop-down for selecting which log to view. The contents of the log will appear in the window.

Bill

Raffi_

@goa200:

@Rango:
@mind12:
Hi,

if you use the Inline IPS mode there won't be any blocking by default only alerts. This way you have time to configure blocking on specific categories or rules in the SID mgmt menu using dropsid.conf file.
So far I use these in my dropsid.conf and I'm satisfied with the results. Feel free to modify for your needs:
snort_
emerging-drop
emerging-botcc.portgrouped
emerging-botcc
emerging-ciarmy
emerging-compromised
emerging-dshield
emerging-tor
emerging-worm
emerging-trojan
emerging-mobile_malware
emerging-malware

1:2016149       # ET INFO Session Traversal Utilities for NAT (STUN Binding Request)
1:2016150       # ET INFO Session Traversal Utilities for NAT (STUN Binding Response)
1:2012247  	# ET P2P BTWebClient UA uTorrent in use
1:2221002  	# SURICATA HTTP request field missing colon
1:2221013  	# SURICATA HTTP request header invalid
1:2016777  	# ET INFO HTTP Request to a *.pw domain
#1:2013031       # ET POLICY Python-urllib/ Suspicious User Agent
1:2014701  	# ET DNS Non-DNS or Non-Compliant DNS traffic on DNS port Opcode 6 or 7 set
1:2014703  	# ET DNS Non-DNS or Non-Compliant DNS traffic on DNS port Reserved Bit Set
I just copied your setup into my suricata setup. Have you found for this to be sufficient at start up or have you added more since then. Where u at now as far as rules go. I just setup suricata and disabled hardware notification rule which was pretty much flooding the log. I googled it before i did that.
been trying to find more info regardin dropsid.conf or how to copy a setup like this. But i havnt found anything. Could anyone please point me in the right direction how you use above setup to copy it into your own suricata setup

goa, that list will not work as a dropsid.conf file because it doesn't separate the categories with commas. You can find a really good write up by bmeeks in the forum here https://forum.pfsense.org/index.php?topic=108365.msg603749#msg603749

goa200

@bmeeks:

Very easy. In @mind12's post click the small red "Select" link to select everything in the code box and then copy that to the clipboard using CTRL+c or whatever other shortcut your computer uses. Now go over to Suricata and open the SID MGMT tab. Click the ADD button to create a new dropsid.conf file. In the modal dialog that opens, type the list name on the top line (I suggest something like "dropsid-LAN.conf" or "dropsid-WAN.conf" depending on the interface you intend to use it with). Then paste the clipboard contents into the textarea control in the middle of the dialog using the appropriate keyboard shortcut for your computer (CTRL+v) for Windows. Click SAVE to create the new list. It will now show up along side the other sample lists on the page.

Go down to the interfaces list at the bottom of the SID MGMT page and in the row for the interface you want to assign the new dropsid.conf file to, go across to the dropsid drop-down selector and choose the just-created list. If you want to immediately apply the list to the running Suricata interface, then tick the checkbox over on the far left end of the row and then click SAVE. That's it.

You can view the result of the automatic SID MGMT operation by going to the LOGS VIEW tab, choosing the interface where you assigned the new list, and then selecting the "sid_changes.log" in the drop-down for selecting which log to view. The contents of the log will appear in the window.

Bill

Superthanks!!

Does this override my current suricata setup for wan?
Are there any documents where i can read more about this?
Or where i can find more info about this. As i prefer to read up on this myself instead of having to constantly ask questions in the forum.

goa200

@Raffi.:

goa, that list will not work as a dropsid.conf file because it doesn't separate the categories with commas. You can find a really good write up by bmeeks in the forum here https://forum.pfsense.org/index.php?topic=108365.msg603749#msg603749

Cant i just add , to each row?

Raffi_

There might be books on this, but the official pfSense book doesn't have much at all on Suricata. This is a community driven project and these forums have been extremely helpful for me. I have learn about it, thanks to people on the forums and some trial and error. Unfortunately, it does require digging around for answers. I didn't find all the answers in one place. I even found some contradictory information such as lists without commas and lists with them. Read up on that link I sent. If you still have questions, don't be afraid to dig some more and ask more questions.

One thing the pfSense book taught me was how to use google with more relevant results. For example, try typing in google "suricata inline site:pfsense.org" This will limit the search to information about suricata inline mode on pfsense.org, including the forums.

goa200

@Raffi.:

There might be books on this, but the official pfSense book doesn't have much at all on Suricata. This is a community driven project and these forums have been extremely helpful for me. I have learn about it, thanks to people on the forums and some trial and error. Unfortunately, it does require digging around for answers. I didn't find all the answers in one place. I even found some contradictory information such as lists without commas and lists with them. Read up on that link I sent. If you still have questions, don't be afraid to dig some more and ask more questions.

One thing the pfSense book taught me was how to use google with more relevant results. For example, try typing in google "suricata inline site:pfsense.org" This will limit the search to information about suricata inline mode on pfsense.org, including the forums.

Dont think my current card supports inline mode. So no real point in reading up about it.