-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- ________________________________________________________________________________ Sun Microsystems, Inc. Security Bulletin Bulletin Number: #00193 Date: January 5, 2000 Cross-Ref: CERT Advisory CA-2000-01 Title: Distributed Denial-of-Service Tools ________________________________________________________________________________ The information contained in this Security Bulletin is provided "AS IS." Sun makes no warranties of any kind whatsoever with respect to the information contained in this Security Bulletin. ALL EXPRESS OR IMPLIED CONDITIONS, REPRESENTATIONS AND WARRANTIES, INCLUDING ANY WARRANTY OF NON-INFRINGEMENT OR IMPLIED WARRANTY OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, ARE HEREBY DISCLAIMED AND EXCLUDED TO THE EXTENT ALLOWED BY APPLICABLE LAW. IN NO EVENT WILL SUN MICROSYSTEMS, INC. BE LIABLE FOR ANY LOST REVENUE, PROFIT OR DATA, OR FOR DIRECT, SPECIAL, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, INCIDENTAL OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES HOWEVER CAUSED AND REGARDLESS OF ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY ARISING OUT OF THE USE OF OR INABILITY TO USE THE INFORMATION CONTAINED IN THIS SECURITY BULLETIN, EVEN IF SUN MICROSYSTEMS, INC. HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. If any of the above provisions are held to be in violation of applicable law, void, or unenforceable in any jurisdiction, then such provisions are waived to the extent necessary for this disclaimer to be otherwise enforceable in such jurisdiction. ________________________________________________________________________________ 1. Background Several Sun Microsystems customers have expressed concern about security issues raised in the recent "SANS Flash Alert For Solaris" message posted to several security mailing lists in the last few days. The issues cited in the posting have also been reported by CERT, NIPC and other key organizations. The issues raised in these advisories and postings are not new, and no new vulnerabilities are involved. Also, no "virus"- or "worm"-like software is involved. Further, there is no related "Y2K" issue. (All of these possibilities have been proposed by concerned customers.) Rather, the problems described in these advisories are caused by software tools that are deliberately installed on machines which have already been compromised. The tools may then be subsequently used to launch denial-of-service attacks. The tools (known as Trinoo, TFN, TFN2K, and Stacheldraht) are not capable of spreading on their own, but do make use of already compromised hosts as "client" machines to flood networks or targeted systems, causing denial-of-service conditions. Sun and other organizations, such as CERT, believe that many of the hosts used as attack "clients" have been compromised via exploitation of known vulnerabilities such as: o rpc.statd port bounce o rpc.cmsd buffer overflows o tooltalk buffer overflows Sun patches are currently available for each of these vulnerabilities. (For details, see "Recommendations" section below.) Again: the new attack methods do not exploit new vulnerabilities. The pertinent CERT advisory is at: http://www.cert.org/advisories/CA-2000-01.html 2. Recommendations Sun recommends that you install all applicable security patches listed in Sun security bulletins #00186 and #00188 to prevent exploitation of the rpc.statd and rpc.cmsd vulnerabilities. Sun also recommends that you keep your systems current on security patches and install all applicable patches listed at: http://sunsolve.sun.com/pub-cgi/show.pl?target=patches/patch-license&nav=pub-p _______________________________________________________________________________ APPENDICES A. Patches listed in this bulletin are available to all Sun customers at: http://sunsolve.sun.com/pub-cgi/show.pl?target=patches/patch-license&nav=pub-patches B. Checksums for the patches listed in this bulletin are available at: ftp://sunsolve.sun.com/pub/patches/CHECKSUMS C. Sun security bulletins are available at: http://sunsolve.sun.com/pub-cgi/secBulletin.pl D. Sun Security Coordination Team's PGP key is available at: http://sunsolve.sun.com/pgpkey.txt E. To report or inquire about a security problem with Sun software, contact one or more of the following: - Your local Sun answer centers - Your representative computer security response team, such as CERT - Sun Security Coordination Team. Send email to: security-alert@sun.com F. To receive information or subscribe to our CWS (Customer Warning System) mailing list, send email to: security-alert@sun.com with a subject line (not body) containing one of the following commands: Command Information Returned/Action Taken _______ _________________________________ help An explanation of how to get information key Sun Security Coordination Team's PGP key list A list of current security topics query [topic] The email is treated as an inquiry and is forwarded to the Security Coordination Team report [topic] The email is treated as a security report and is forwarded to the Security Coordination Team. Please encrypt sensitive mail using Sun Security Coordination Team's PGP key send topic A short status summary or bulletin. For example, to retrieve a Security Bulletin #00138, supply the following in the subject line (not body): send #138 subscribe Sender is added to our mailing list. To subscribe, supply the following in the subject line (not body): subscribe cws your-email-address Note that your-email-address should be substituted by your email address. unsubscribe Sender is removed from the CWS mailing list. ________________________________________________________________________________ Copyright 2000 Sun Microsystems, Inc. All rights reserved. Sun, Sun Microsystems, Solaris and SunOS are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. in the United States and other countries. This Security Bulletin may be reproduced and distributed, provided that this Security Bulletin is not modified in any way and is attributed to Sun Microsystems, Inc. and provided that such reproduction and distribution is performed for non-commercial purposes. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBOHPfY7dzzzOFBFjJAQHE1QQArnqCsxwsETW61Ba8NyxLx0KN2caM8zNB ymUGjppxBXTDfJ4y1dfYqlAw0TvZpWx8LhKcDfvSIJIfjgjgNxreQrTipiRhprbX VCwKKUFUx03GK+xj2TTGownpK8bQ4vTk26SIQjzlFLy3oCS1pkm+i9BySYuLv5K+ CZzq4/XztSE= =nUvs -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----