TCP - IP White Papers
ICMP Usage in Scanning: the Complete Know-How
Overview
The ICMP Protocol may seem harmless at first glance. Its goals and features were outlined in
RFC 792 (and than later cleared in RFCs 1122, 1256, 1349, 1812), as a way to provide a means
to send error messages for non-transient error conditions, and to provide a way to probe the
network in order to determine general characteristics about the network. In terms of security,
ICMP is one of the most controversial protocols in the TCP/IP protocol suite. The risks involved in
implementing the ICMP protocol in a network, regarding scanning, are the subject of this research
paper.
Scanning will usually be the major stage of an information gathering process a malicious
computer attacker will launch against a targeted network. With this stage the malicious computer
attacker will try to determine what are the characteristics of the targeted network. He will use
several techniques, such as host detection, service detection, network topology mapping, and
operating system fingerprinting. The data collected will be used to identify those Hosts (if any)
that are running a network service, which may have a known vulnerability. This vulnerability may
allow the malicious computer attacker to execute a remote exploit in order to gain unauthorized
access to those systems. This unauthorized access may become his focal point to the whole
targeted network.
| Publisher | Sys-Security.com | File Format | PDF, requires Acrobat Rdr 5 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Date Published | June 2001 | Downloads | 16 |
| Format | White Papers | ||
| Topics | |||
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