CAPEC-293: Traceroute Route Enumeration

Description

An adversary uses a traceroute utility to map out the route which data flows through the network in route to a target destination. Tracerouting can allow the adversary to construct a working topology of systems and routers by listing the systems through which data passes through on their way to the targeted machine. This attack can return varied results depending upon the type of traceroute that is performed. Traceroute works by sending packets to a target while incrementing the Time-to-Live field in the packet header. As the packet traverses each hop along its way to the destination, its TTL expires generating an ICMP diagnostic message that identifies where the packet expired. Traditional techniques for tracerouting involved the use of ICMP and UDP, but as more firewalls began to filter ingress ICMP, methods of traceroute using TCP were developed.

Extended Description

RFC 793 defines the required behavior of any TCP/IP device in that an incoming connection request begins with a SYN packet, which in turn must be followed by a SYN/ACK packet from the receiving service. For this reason, like TCP Connect scanning, SYN scanning works against any TCP stack. Unlike TCP Connect scanning, it is possible to scan thousands of ports per second using this method. This type of scanning is usually referred to as 'half-open' scanning because it does not complete the three-way handshake. The scanning rate is extremely fast because no time is wasted completing the handshake or tearing down the connection. This technique allows an attacker to scan through stateful firewalls due to the common configuration that TCP SYN segments for a new connection will be allowed for almost any port. TCP SYN scanning can also immediately detect 3 of the 4 important types of port status: open, closed, and filtered.

Severity :

Low

Possibility :

Type :

Detailed

Relationships with other CAPECs

This table shows the other attack patterns and high level categories that are related to this attack pattern.

CAPEC-309: Network Topology Mapping Network Topology Mapping

Prerequisites

This table shows the other attack patterns and high level categories that are related to this attack pattern.

A network capable of routing the attackers' packets to the destination network.

Skills required

This table shows the other attack patterns and high level categories that are related to this attack pattern.

Taxonomy mappings

Mappings to ATT&CK, OWASP and other frameworks.

Resources required

A command line version of traceroute or similar tool that performs route enumeration.

Related CWE

A Related Weakness relationship associates a weakness with this attack pattern. Each association implies a weakness that must exist for a given attack to be successful.

CWE-200: Exposure of Sensitive Information to an Unauthorized Actor

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