4 ms·

UDP might be a rather poor-choice security-wise, especially if you rely on this monitoring to alert you if something goes down. It's much easier to spoof a UDP

UDP might be a rather poor-choice security-wise, especially if you rely on this monitoring to alert you if something goes down. It's much easier to spoof a UDP packet from an arbitrary source-IP address than it is with TCP. It gives a fairly easy opportunity for attackers to fake all your service metrics, make it look like everything is Up/Down etc...

misframer 12y ago
You could encrypt datagrams.
- gingerlime 12y ago
  encryption != authentication. Even if you encrypt the datagrams, what stops someone from replaying them? and there are other attack vectors. You probably want to use something like HMAC in this case. But it all depends on your risk profile and environment. I just highlighted one potential attack vector that I didn't see being addressed explicitly, and which might have implications. If the tool explicitly provided message authentication for the UDP datagrams, I would probably not have made the same comment. I think the security fundamentals were missing, let alone more advanced layers of protection.
cbsmith 12y ago
TCP's spoof protections are fairly limited and weak. If you are worried about being spoofed, address it at layer-7. I wouldn't let spoofing concerns drive my choice of layer-3 protocol.
- gingerlime 12y ago
  Spoofing a TCP source address is still pretty hard compared to UDP. And security should always be applied in layers, so if your risk profile is such, then relying on source IP protection alone might not be enough.
  - cbsmith 12y ago
    Probably shouldn't use IP then... ;-)
- mobiplayer 12y ago
  I personally hope you chose IP as a layer-3 protocol. You might want to decide between TCP and UDP for layer-4, though, but as gingerlime pointed out it is stupidly easy to successfully spoof UDP comms, there's not even need to have a MITM situation. Same goes for ICMP.
  - cbsmith 12y ago
    > I personally hope you chose IP as a layer-3 protocol. ROTFL! Whoopsie. ;-) > You might want to decide between TCP and UDP for layer-4, though, but as gingerlime pointed out it is stupidly easy to successfully spoof UDP comms, there's not even need to have a MITM situation. Same goes for ICMP. Yes, but TCP's protections are quite weak. If you are really concerned about spoofing, you are much better off handling that with cryptographic solutions.

misframer 12y ago

You could encrypt datagrams.

gingerlime 12y ago
encryption != authentication. Even if you encrypt the datagrams, what stops someone from replaying them? and there are other attack vectors. You probably want to use something like HMAC in this case. But it all depends on your risk profile and environment. I just highlighted one potential attack vector that I didn't see being addressed explicitly, and which might have implications. If the tool explicitly provided message authentication for the UDP datagrams, I would probably not have made the same comment. I think the security fundamentals were missing, let alone more advanced layers of protection.

cbsmith 12y ago

TCP's spoof protections are fairly limited and weak. If you are worried about being spoofed, address it at layer-7. I wouldn't let spoofing concerns drive my choice of layer-3 protocol.

gingerlime 12y ago
Spoofing a TCP source address is still pretty hard compared to UDP. And security should always be applied in layers, so if your risk profile is such, then relying on source IP protection alone might not be enough.
- cbsmith 12y ago
  Probably shouldn't use IP then... ;-)
mobiplayer 12y ago
I personally hope you chose IP as a layer-3 protocol. You might want to decide between TCP and UDP for layer-4, though, but as gingerlime pointed out it is stupidly easy to successfully spoof UDP comms, there's not even need to have a MITM situation. Same goes for ICMP.
- cbsmith 12y ago
  > I personally hope you chose IP as a layer-3 protocol. ROTFL! Whoopsie. ;-) > You might want to decide between TCP and UDP for layer-4, though, but as gingerlime pointed out it is stupidly easy to successfully spoof UDP comms, there's not even need to have a MITM situation. Same goes for ICMP. Yes, but TCP's protections are quite weak. If you are really concerned about spoofing, you are much better off handling that with cryptographic solutions.