ClearNet Security

If your software licensing ethics tend to contort a tad here and there, then you may find the below tricks helpful when you want to evaluate commercial web app scanners. Partaking in these tricks is slippery, and you may fall into ethical perdition, so prepare yourself!

Super simple trick #1: Request search and replace proxy

Fire up a proxy that supports request search and replace.

Let’s say an app restricts you to scan only their target site (e.g. demo.testsite.net), but you want to point the scanner to a different target.

No problema.

As shown above, I typed in demo.testsite.net for Search, and blog.clearnetsec.com for Replace. Every HTTP request passing through this proxy with a Request-URI matching the string demo.testsite.net will get replaced with blog.clearnetsec.com. The result? The app scans my blog.

Note: Super simple trick #1 only works for apps which restrict via the hostname. If the app is smarter and adds IP validation, then move along to Sort of simple trick #2.

Sort of simple trick #2: IPTables magic

This trick can add license evading umpf to your smokin’ renegade style. :)

Let’s say the app tries to validate you are only scanning the sites you're licensed for by checking the target IP addresses (regardless of how the hostnames are resolved). For example, maybe the demo version of the app allows you to only scan IP address 55.55.55.55.

No problema.

One line explanation: Setup a linux box to do routing, configure a VIP, and add two IPTable NAT rules.

The long answer.

Setup a linux box. A linux VMware image works too. Configure the network as normal – give it a standard IP, gateway, list of name servers, etc., as you would when configuring any other box on your local subnet.

Once you got that, then check out the script below.

Follow? If not, I’ll explain in more detail.

• Again, the first thing you need is a normal networked working linux box.
• There are 4 steps to facilitate a destination IP switch-a-roo:
• Configure a Virtual IP. Pick an IP located on a different subnet, don’t pick an IP on the same subnet as the primary IP.
• Enable IP forwarding.
• Setup a DNAT (Destination NAT) rule to replace the destination IP on the fly. The first IP (e.g. 55.55.55.55) is the licensed locked IP. The second IP is (e.g. 216.241.191.205) is the IP you want to scan.
• Setup a SNAT (Source NAT) rule to replace the source IP on the fly. The first IP (e.g. 192.168.1.101) is your workstation IP. The second IP is the primary IP address of the linux box.

The last step there, #4, is overloaded. Once you go through the steps above on the linux box, then you need to change the IP address of your workstation with the app scanner installed. You want to pick a new IP for your workstation which is on the same subnet as the VIP you configured on the linux box. You also want to change your workstation to use the linux box as your gateway to the Internet, so change the default route address to match the IP of the VIP on the linux box.

That should do it. Replace the IPs in the IPTable rules above with the IPs that work for you and scan away.

Note: You can’t always do the IPTables trick by itself; one reason is due to virtual hosting. If only one website is being hosted on the IP, then you probably can do this. If the target IP is hosting lots of domains, then you need to chain the request and replace proxy with the IPTables magic to ensure each Request-URI is for the correct host and domain.

For example, GET http://216.241.191.205/... HTTP/1.1 may not be the same as GET http://blog.clearnetsec.com/... HTTP/1.1

Super Simple trick #3: VMware snapshots

Most everyone is likely familiar with this trick. If you have a web app installed in a VMware image and you have a working license (e.g. trial license), but it expires at a certain time and date, the trick is to create a snapshot of the VMware image with the app in a working state.

Anytime you want to scan, change your host OS clock back to a time that is within the licensing window (or ensure your VMware guest image doesn’t sync the clock with the host OS when you restore the snapshot), and restore the snapshot.

Note: Some apps may call home when first launched, so it helps to create the VM snapshot when you have the app open and ready to scan.

Trick addendum:

For those web app scanners which restrict you from scanning SSL enabled sites, have no hesistation, you can work around that too.

One way is via stunnel. From www.stunnel.org.

Encrypted version with STUNNEL

+---------+      | |     +--------+    +---------+
| non-SSL | -ST- | | --- | Apache | -- | non-SSL |
| enabled |      | |     | WITH   |    | enabled |
| client  |      | |     | SSL    |    | server  |
+---------+      | |     +--------+    +---------+
   CLIENT        NET     WEB SERVER      SERVICE

Note the position of STUNNEL : the "-ST-" in the diagram above. Below is an example stunnel configuration:

client=yes
verify=0
[psuedo-https]
accept = 8080
connect = blog.clearnetsec.com:443
TIMEOUTclose=0

Configure your app or browser to use the stunnel proxy listening on port 8080 and you'll be able to hit the site using HTTPS (via the proxy), but your local app or browser will be only speaking HTTP.

Quick alternate to #1 for Apache fan boys and girls:

Via Apache 2.2.x, with mod proxy and mod rewrite enabled, setup a proxy like so:

ProxyRequests On
<Proxy *>
RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule ^(.+) http://blog.clearnetsec.com/$1 [P] (or something close to this)
Order deny,allow
Deny from all
Allow from all
</Proxy>

Configure your browser or app scanner to use this Apache proxy server and all Request-URIs passed through will be re- written to target http://blog.clearnetsec.com/.

YMMV. Have fun.

This actually relates to security. It's round about but it'll tie together.

I was speaking with a college buddy the other day, a guy I respect the hell out of who happens to be an extremely senior engineer and now a fairly wealthy man due to applying that skill in some successful companies. I can't remember the exact thing I said but I was chatting about work, sort of complaining or venting and he called me out for speaking negatively about my current company's QA. I was basically saying that they don't seem to try very hard and he pretty much asked me why they ever would if you treated them like inferiors?

I was a little taken back, I don't think I treat them that way, it's not a conscious thing but clearly there is a caste. I haven't had that many jobs but the 2 places where test was treated as equals and with the same respect as development they also had the same level of responsibility and we ultimately had much much better testing. It works better when everyone takes ownership of the whole product and it generally doesn't work that well when people try to just slice off little pieces and ignore the rest. Everywhere else, most other places, QA were second class citizens, it seems like a normal sort of way of operating. People can rise to the level of expectation, if that level is too low then that's what you'll get.

So how does this affect security? Network ops and marketing usually have very different missions. In the last 10 years, businesses have added security groups and security officers to “add security” to the business, and to basically fill in a hole that nobody else owned. It doesn't work very well. A CSO should be more like an ombudsman. If it's not everybody's responsibility and everybody's job then it simply won't work, there are no tools you can simply buy that will make your business “secure.”