Archive for the 'Logging' kategorien

Kombinere Logwatch og OSSEC - Del 4

18 februar 2010

I mitt siste innlegg installerte vi Logwatch samt OSSEC. Det er nå på tide å få Logwatch og OSSEC spille sammen i samme sandkassen. I dette innlegget vil jeg diskutere hvordan komme Logwatch å oppsummere den informasjonen som blir generert av OSSEC.

Distribusjon Options

Vi har to veier vi kan følge for å sette dette opp:

  1. Har Logwatch analysere OSSEC logger direkte.
  2. Har OSSEC sende sine meldinger til en Syslog typen server, og deretter kjøre Logwatch på Syslog server.

Fordelen til alternativ nr. 1 er at vi bare trenger ett system. Logwatch skal kjøres på systemet vert for OSSEC server. Problemet vi skal kjøre inn likevel innebærer OSSEC varselet fil. Loggoppføringer ikke får normalisert. Dette betyr at formatet kan endre seg fra oppføring til oppføring, og kan også spre seg over flere linjer. Det kommer til å bli en ekte mareritt å lage en Logwatch skript som vil filtrere og oppsummere varselet informasjon.

Hvis vi går med alternativ nr. 2, vil vi kreve en annen boks til å handle som vår sentralisert logging server. For å få OSSEC serveren godta loggoppføringene fra ikke-agent systemer, har det å lytte på UDP/514. Dette er den samme porten som brukes av en sentralisert logging server, og du kan ikke ha to programmer deler de samme port (unntatt med Windows, men socket tilgangen er ekstremt rotete). På pluss-siden, vil varsle oppføringene blir normalisert når de er overført til syslog serveren slik skape en Logwatch sammendrag manus vil være langt enklere. Videre vet Logwatch allerede om standard Syslog filene, så vi vil ha mindre tilpasning arbeid å gjøre.

Til slutt nevnte jeg i et tidligere innlegg at OSSEC ikke er designet for å være et SIM. Dette er fordi det ikke ta opp alt, bare hendelser som genererer et varsel. Så vi er sannsynligvis kommer til å ha en sentralisert server uansett, og det er fornuftig å ha den lagre informasjonen blir generert av OSSEC.

Så hvis det høres ut som jeg styrer deg mot alternativ # 2, du er absolutt korrekt. Med det sagt, jeg faktisk kommer til å dekke alternativ # 1 som det er et langt mer komplisert oppsett.

Dealing med dato / klokkeslett Frimerker

Ta en titt på de viktigste OSSEC logfile og du skal se omtrent slik ut:

[Root @ Fubar logger] # tail -3 / var / ossec / logs / ossec.log

2010/02/18 12:32:05 ossec-rootcheck: INFO: Ending rootcheck scan.

2010/02/18 14:27:06 ossec-syscheckd: INFO: Starter syscheck scan.

2010/02/18 14:39:21 ossec-syscheckd: INFO: Ending syscheck scan.

Legg merke til måten dato / klokkeslett-stempel er formatert. Dette er annerledes enn de fleste applikasjoner, så det første vi trenger å gjøre er å fortelle Logwatch hvordan man skal håndtere dette formatet. Vi må lage et skript som vi kan ringe når det trengs som forstår formatet vist ovenfor.

Start med å flytte inn i den delte scripts katalogen:

cd / usr / share / logwatch / scripts / delt

Bruk din favoritt editor, lage en fil som heter "applylongdate":

VI applylongdate

Her er hva du trenger innsiden av den filen. Føl deg fri til å kopiere / lime inn fra denne siden:

Bruk Logwatch ': datoer';

my $ Debug = $ ENV {'LOGWATCH_DEBUG'} | | 0;

$ SearchDate = TimeFilter ('% Y /% m /% d% H:% M:% S');

if ($ Debug> 5) {

print stderr "DEBUG: Inside ApplyLongDate ... \ n";

print stderr "DEBUG: Looking For". $ SearchDate. "\ N";

}

while (definert ($ ThisLine = <STDIN>)) {

if ($ ThisLine = ~ m / ^ $ SearchDate / o) {

print $ ThisLine = ~ s / ^ .... \ / .. \ / .. ..:..:.. / /;

print $ ThisLine;

}

}

# Vi: shiftwidth = 3 syntaks = perl tabstop = 3 et

Når du lagrer filen, har vi nå må sette de riktige tillatelser:

chmod 755 applylongdate

Konfigurer loggfilene

Neste vi trenger å fortelle Logwatch hvor OSSEC log filene ligger. Hver gang du legger til nye loggfiler eller lage nye tjenester til å overvåke i Logwatch, bør du plassere endringer under / etc / logwatch katalogen. Vi skal lage to konfigurasjonsfiler. Den første vil håndtere OSSEC meldinger, og den andre vil håndtere OSSEC varsler og aktiv respons endringer.

La oss starte med å opprette konfigurasjonsfilen for de viktigste OSSEC loggfilen:

cd / etc / logwatch / conf / loggfiler

VI ossec.conf

Innholdet i filen skal være som følger:

Logfile = / var / ossec / logs / ossec.log

* ApplyLongDate =

Du kan nå lagre og avslutte filen. Deretter vil vi lage config-filen for de resterende loggfiler:

VI ossec-alert.conf

Innholdet av denne filen bør være som følger:

Logfile = / var / ossec / logs / aktiv-responses.log

Logfile = / var / ossec / logs / alarmer / alerts.log

Logfile = / var / ossec / logs / brannmur / firewall.log

Når du er ferdig, lagre og avslutte. Standard tillatelsene bør være akseptabelt for oppsett vår.

Konfigurere OSSEC Services

Deretter må vi definere OSSEC tjenester og identifisere hva vi vil bruke som en tittel når rapportene er generert. Her er hvordan du lager den første filen:

cd / etc / logwatch / conf / tjenester

VI ossec.conf

Innholdet i denne filen er ganske enkelt:

Title = "OSSEC Meldinger"

Logfile = ossec

Når du er ferdig kan du lagre og avslutte. Vi trenger å skape en mer fil i denne katalogen:

VI ossec-alert.conf

Innholdet i denne filen skal være:

Title = "OSSEC Alerts"

Loggfil = ossec-varsling

Når du er ferdig, lagre og avslutte som vanlig.

Parsing oppføringene

Deretter må vi fortelle Logwatch hvordan du formaterer loggoppføringene i rapporten. Vi må skape en tilpasning skript for hvert sett av tjenester. Vi skal starte med å bruke en Logwatch medfølgende testskriptet, bare for å kontrollere at alt fungerer.

Start med å flytte inn i den aktuelle katalogen:

cd / etc / logwatch / scripts / tjenester

Bruk din favoritt editor for å lage ditt første skript:

VI ossec

Innholdet i manuskriptet bør være som følger:

#! / Bin / bash

# Dette er så fint skript som vil vise deg de linjene du vil

# Være prosessering og rapportering på. Det vil først vise

# Standard miljøvariabler og så tar det STDIN og

# Dumpe det rett ut igjen til STDOUT.

# Dette er standard miljøvariabler. Du kan definere

# Mer i din tjeneste config fil (se ovenfor).

echo "Date Range: $ LOGWATCH_DATE_RANGE"

echo "Detalj Nivå: $ LOGWATCH_DETAIL_LEVEL"

echo "Temp Dir: $ LOGWATCH_TEMP_DIR"

echo "Debug Nivå: $ LOGWATCH_DEBUG"

# Nå tar STDIN og dumpe det å STDOUT

cat

Nå opprette din andre skript:

VI ossec-varsling

og omfatter nøyaktig samme innhold:

#! / Bin / bash

# Dette er så fint skript som vil vise deg de linjene du vil

# Være prosessering og rapportering på. Det vil først vise

# Standard miljøvariabler og så tar det STDIN og

# Dumpe det rett ut igjen til STDOUT.

# Dette er standard miljøvariabler. Du kan definere

# Mer i din tjeneste config fil (se ovenfor).

echo "Date Range: $ LOGWATCH_DATE_RANGE"

echo "Detalj Nivå: $ LOGWATCH_DETAIL_LEVEL"

echo "Temp Dir: $ LOGWATCH_TEMP_DIR"

echo "Debug Nivå: $ LOGWATCH_DEBUG"

# Nå tar STDIN og dumpe det å STDOUT

cat

Til slutt må vi stille de riktige tillatelsene:

chmod 755 ossec *

Testing Setup

Den enkleste måten å teste vår nye oppsettet er å kjøre kommandoen:

logwatch | less

Hvis du bare ønsker å se endringene, kan du kjøre en rapport på hver service, en om gangen:

logwatch-service ossec | less

logwatch-service ossec-varsling | less

Videre Customization

Når du får alle de ovennevnte arbeider, kan du fokusere på å få Logwatch å filtrere og oppsummere loggoppføringene. Logwatch er ganske fleksibel, og du kan tilpasse resultatet slik du vil. En av de fine ting om ovenstående testskriptet er høyere enn at den viser deg nøyaktig hva du har å jobbe med. Så med litt regulært uttrykk magi kan du oppsummere oppføringene som du anser som passende. For noen ideer, sjekk ut filene ligger under:

/ Usr / share / logwatch / scripts / tjenester

Disse er standard sammendraget skript som følger med Logwatch. Spesifikt, ta en titt på filene "pam" og "sshd". De er gode eksempler på både et enkelt og et komplekst sett av sammendrag filtre.

Etter hvert som du utvikler din scripts, betaler nær oppmerksomhet til $ LOGWATCH_DETAIL_LEVEL "variable. Dette vil tillate deg å tilpasse utgangsnivået av rapporten avhengig av hvor mye ordrikhet brukeren er ute etter. For eksempel, mens du fremdeles er i tjenestene ovenfor katalogen, kjører du følgende kommando:

mindre sshd

Når den første siden av filen innholdet vises, skriver:

/ Detalj <Enter Key>

Den omvendte skråstreken lar oss søke filen for en bestemt tekststreng. I dette tilfellet er vi søker etter ordet "Detalj". Når du trykker Enter søket vil hoppe gjennom filen til den finner den første forekomsten av tekststrengen. Det vil også markere søkestrengen. I den første kampen vil du merke at forfatteren tildelt variabelen "$ Detalj" å være den samme som variabelen $ LOGWATCH_DETAIL_LEVEL ". Dette er for å spare dem noen skrive.

Nå trykker backslash-tasten igjen etterfulgt av Enter-tasten. Dette vil hoppe gjennom filen til den neste forekomsten av "Detalj". Du bør se:

if ($ Detalj> = 20) {

$ Brukere {$ Bruker} {$ Host} {$ Method} + +;

} Else {

if ($ Host! ~ / $ IgnoreHost /) {

$ Brukere {$ Bruker} {$ Host} {"(alle )"}++;

Merk forfatteren gir mer informasjon om detaljnivået er satt til 20 (halvveis mellom lav og medium) eller høyere. Hold hopping gjennom filen, og du vil se andre eksempler hvor forfatteren leveraged denne teknikken.

Nå side ned til slutten av filen, og du bør se denne uttalelsen:

if (nøkler% OtherList) {

print "\ n ** Enestående Entries ** \ n";

print "$ _: $ OtherList {$ _} tid (s) \ n" foreach nøkler% OtherList;

}

Denne delen er ekstremt viktig, da det er en endelig CatchAll. Tenk på en brannmur policy for et øyeblikk. De fleste av oss å skape en endelig regel som sier: "Hvis jeg ikke spesifikt tillate at et trafikkbilde gjennom, benekte det." Med andre ord, hvis noe uventet skjer, er det slik jeg vil at du skal håndtere det.

Ovennevnte uttalelse tjener samme formål under analyse av logfile. Alle de tidligere "hvis" uttalelser forsøk på å matche en bestemt tekststreng i loggen oppføring for å formatere den skikkelig. Dette innlegget sier "Hvis du ikke har matchet og skrevet en spesifikk loggoppføring ennå, skrive det ut i et avsnitt med tittelen" ** Enestående Entries ** ". Dette trinnet er ekstremt viktig fordi uten det vi aldri får se uventede oppføringer. Det er de uventede oppføringer som er trolig den viktigste og mest interessante.

Exec Summary

Både OSSEC og Logwatch er utmerket gratis verktøy. OSSEC utmerker seg ved å advare deg når et visst angrep mønster finner sted. Logwatch er et fantastisk verktøy for å oppsummere en tid blings av logger, slik mennesker kan faktisk gjøre oppfatning av hva som skjer. Ved å kombinere de to verktøyene kan du lage et langt mer robust forsvar i dybden holdning. Det hele blir større enn summen av delene.

Kombinere Logwatch og OSSEC - Del 3

17 februar 2010

I mine to siste innlegg drøftet jeg Logwatch og OSSEC, samt hvordan de kan utnytte for å forsterke sikkerheten holdning. I denne utgaven vil jeg diskutere hvordan å installere begge disse verktøyene.

Installere Logwatch

Logwatch er ganske enkel å installere. Faktisk er det installert som standard på mange Linux-distribusjoner, så du kanskje allerede har en kopi på systemet ditt. For å sjekke, pålogging som root og prøve å kjøre Logwatch med "-v"-bryteren. Hvis du ser:

[Root @ Fubar logwatch] # logwatch-v

Logwatch 7.3.6 (utgitt 05/19/07)

Logwatch er installert og du har en kopi av den nyeste versjonen. Hvis du ikke har den nyeste versjonen, kan du hente det fra Logwatch nedlastingssiden .

Det er tre varianter av Logwatch som kan lastes ned; Binærfiler i RPM-format, kilden i RPM-format, eller kilde i en Tar ball. Hvis systemet støtter RPM pakke administrasjon er binær RPM beste valget. Den er enkel å installere og RPM vil automatisk oppdatere programvaren når nye versjoner er tilgjengelige.

Installasjon Logwatch Fra RPM

For å installere den binære versjonen av RPM, bare pålogging som root og naviger til katalogen der du lastet ned RPM filen. Nå utføre kommandoen:

rpm-U logwatch-7.3.6-1.noarch.rpm

Ikke glem at du kan bruke tabulatortasten for å auto-fullføre filnavnet i stedet for å skrive i det hele.

Installere Logwatch fra kilde

Installere fra source er litt mer tidkrevende. Husk at for å installere kildekoden må du allerede ha en kompilator (som gcc) installert på systemet ditt. Pålogging som root og naviger til katalogen der du lastet ned Tar ballen. Å pakke ut arkivet, utføre kommandoen:

tjære xvzf logwatch-7.3.6.tar.gz

Du vil se en katalogstruktur under din nåværende posisjon bli opprettet og massevis av filer blir kopiert i. Vi trenger nå å flytte inn i den øverste katalogen som ble laget:

cd logwatch-7.3.6

For Logwatch å kjøre, er det en haug med kataloger som må opprettes på systemet ditt. Disse er dokumentert i README i gjeldende katalog. Heldigvis inkluderer Logwatch en installere skript som kan gjøre alt arbeidet for deg. Dessverre har skriptet feil tillatelsene satt slik at den ikke vil kjøre som standard. Dette er ganske enkelt å fikse men med chmod kommandoen:

chmod 500 install_logwatch.sh

Nå kan vi kjøre skriptet for å sette systemet vårt:

. / Install_logwatch.sh

Ikke glem perioden på begynnelsen av linjen.

Testing Logwatch

Å teste Logwatch oppsettet, utføre kommandoen:

logwatch | less

Du vil se din terminal skjermen blankes, men det er normalt. Du vil etter hvert se en Logwatch rapport blir skrevet til skjermen som du kan navigere gjennom å bruke "Page Up" og "Page Down"-tastene. Hvordan logger det tar for rapporten å dukke opp på skjermen vil avhenge av hvor mye loggopplysninger trenger å få analysert. Det kan ta noen sekunder eller et par minutter. Uansett vil det gi deg en sjanse til å gjøre deg kjent med rapporten format.

Installere OSSEC

Som jeg nevnte i mitt forrige innlegg, har du to monteringsmuligheter med OSSEC, lokale eller klient / server. I dette innlegget skal jeg fokusere på klient / tjener-oppsett, da det er litt mer kompleks. Hvis du utfører en lokal installasjon, velger du bare den "lokale" alternativet under installeringsprosessen og hoppe over den delen om å sette opp en sikker kanal mellom agenten og serveren.

Begynn med serveren

OSSEC bruker Blowfish kryptering for å sikre kommunikasjonen mellom klienten og serveren. Blowfish er symmetrisk nøkkel basert, slik at begge parter må vite hva nøkkelen verdi som skal brukes for å kommunisere. Serveren er ansvarlig for å generere symmetriske nøkkelen, så vi må installere serverprogramvaren først. Under kunden installerer vi vil bli bedt om en nøkkel verdi så åpenbart vi trenger å ha det hendig forut for sin tid.

Her er en tidsbesparende tips. Nøkkelen Verdien er lang og nesten umulig å huske. Den enkleste måten å flytte nøkkelen verdien fra serveren systemet til agenten systemet er å bruke SSH. Opprett en sikker tilkobling til OSSEC server, og pakke den aktuelle tasten (instruksjonene nedenfor). I en annen terminal vindu, opprette en SSH sesjon til systemet hvor du skal installere agenten. Når klienten installerer ber deg om de viktigste verdi, kan du bare kopiere / lime mellom de to terminalene.

Installere OSSEC Server

Serverprogramvaren er tilgjengelig som en Tar ball, slik at du kan ta en kopi av den nyeste versjonen fra OSSEC nedlastingssiden . Du vil da trenge å pakke ut innholdet i Tar ballen:

tjære xvzf ossec-hids-2.3.tar.gz

Deretter flytter inn katalogstrukturen du nettopp laget:

cd ossec-hids-2.3

OSSEC gir en installere skript for å lede deg gjennom prosessen med å installere serveren. For å starte skriptet, type:

. / Install.sh

Ikke glem perioden på begynnelsen av kommandoen. Du vil nå bli bedt om gjennom en rekke installere alternativer:

  • Språk - Standard er engelsk. Endre etter behov.
  • Bekreftelse på installasjon - Trykk Enter når du har lest skjermen.
  • Installer type - Skriv inn "server" uten anførselstegn, og trykk Enter.
  • Installer plassering - Godta standard.
  • E-postvarsling - Standard er ja, velge om du vil at e-postvarsler. Hvis du velger Ja, vil du bli bedt om en gyldig e-postadresse og e-postserveren.
  • Integritet sjekk - Standard er ja. Velg om du vil det lokale systemet jevnlig sjekket for inntrengere.
  • Root kit brannvarslere - Standard er ja. Godt alternativ siden vi trenger for å opprettholde en høy grad av integritet på dette systemet.
  • Aktiv respons - Standard er ja. Velg dette alternativet hvis du ønsker å være i stand til å reagere på hendelser.
  • Brannmur drop - tillater OSSEC serveren for å forsvare seg selv hvis en direkte angrep blir oppdaget.
  • Hvit liste - Dette vil tillate deg å legge IP-adresser som mulige angrep vil bli ignorert. Vær forsiktig med dette alternativet. Hvis du ikke vil ha konsollen tilgang til OSSEC server, kan det være lurt å identifisere én IP-adresse som kan alltid komme inn Akkurat sikre kilden IP er et troverdig system.
  • Aktiver Syslog - Standard er ja. Velg dette alternativet hvis du ønsker å samle logger fra systemet som ikke kan kjøre en OSSEC agent (som brannmurer, svitsjer, rutere og aksesspunkter, etc.).
  • Loggfiler som skal overvåkes - Dette skjermbildet identifiserer alle de lokale loggfiler OSSEC vil overvåke. Det er en ren informasjon, så alt du kan gjøre er å trykke Enter for å gå forbi den. Hvis du oppdager en eller flere loggfiler mangler i listen, kan du legge dem senere til ossec.conf fil.

På dette punktet OSSEC vil få tilgang til lokale kompilatoren og installere alle nødvendige filer inn i systemet. Når ferdig, kan du starte OSSEC server ved å kjøre kommandoen:

/ Var / ossec / bin / ossec-control start

Definere OSSEC Agenter

Vi er ikke ferdig med OSSEC server ennå. Deretter må vi pre-definere noen systemer som skal kjøre OSSEC agent (klient) programvare. Dette er utført ved hjelp av manage_agents kommandoen. Først trenger vi imidlertid å gjøre litt lekser. Lag en liste over alle de systemene som skal kjøre OSSEC agenten programvare. For hvert system, trenger du et beskrivende navn samt at systemets IP-adresse.

Nå utføre følgende fra kommandolinjen:

/ Var / ossec / bin / manage_agents

Dette vil produsere Agent manager hovedmenyen. Trykk på "A" etterfulgt av Enter-tasten for å definere ditt første system. Skriv inn et beskrivende navn for det første systemet, etterfulgt av systemets IP-adresse. Ikke bekymre deg agenten ID-nummer. Bare godta standard og OSSEC vil automatisk tildele neste tilgjengelige ID-nummer. Når du bekrefter den informasjonen du skrev, vil du bli returnert til Agent manager hovedmenyen. Gjenta prosessen over for hvert system som skal kjøre en OSSEC agent.

Generere Keys

Når du har lagt i alle systemer, er det på tide å generere krypteringsnøkler. Dette trinnet er også utført med manage_agents verktøyet. Hvis du lukket verktøyet etter siste trinnet, relanseringen det nå.

Trykk på "E" tasten etterfulgt av Enter for å velge "Pakk ut nøkkelen for en agent" menyvalget. Du vil da bli spurt om ID-nummeret på nøkkelen du ønsker å pakke. Den beskrivende navn og IP-adresser er oppført med hver ID-nummer, så det burde være trivielt å identifisere hvilken du vil. Begynn med det systemet du har tenkt å installere agenten programvaren på først.

OSSEC Agent Installasjon på Linux

Når du installerer agenten programvaren på en Linux eller UNIX klient, bruker du akkurat samme Tar ballen vi brukte til å installere serverprogramvaren. Kjør samme installere skriptet, men denne gangen når du blir bedt for den typen installerer du ønsker å utføre, skriv inn "agent" etterfulgt av Enter-tasten.

Klienten installere har mange av de samme instruksjonene som serveren installere. Bruk info ovenfor for å veilede deg gjennom prosessen. Meldingen som vil variere er imidlertid at du vil bli bedt om å oppgi IP-adressen til OSSEC serveren. Etter fullført, vil OSSEC tilgang til lokale kompilatoren og installere alle nødvendige filer inn i systemet.

Neste vi trenger å importere Blowfish nøkkelen fra OSSEC serveren. Mens han fortsatt på agenten systemet, kjører du kommandoen:

/ Var / ossec / bin / manage_agents

Når Agent Manager-menyen vises, velger du "jeg" for å importere Blowfish tasten.

Når den neste meldingen vises, må du manuelt skrive inn riktig Blowfish tasten. Igjen, hvis du kjører SSH til begge systemene samtidig, kan du bare kopiere / lime mellom de to terminalene. Pass på nøkkelen ser riktig, trykker på Enter-tasten, og velg deretter "y" for å bekrefte at nøkkelen ser riktig. Du vil bli returnert til Agent Manager-menyen. Velg "q" for å gå tilbake til kommandolinjen.

Nå skal vi bare trenger å starte OSSEC agent. Du kan gjøre dette ved å kjøre følgende kommando:

/ Var / ossec / bin / ossec-control start

Du skal se alle OSSEC agenten komponentene oppstart, etterfulgt av en "Completed"-melding.

OSSEC Agent installere på Windows

OSSEC har en selvutpakkende kjørbar som vil tillate deg å installere agenten programvare på en Windows system. Bare dobbeltklikk på den kjørbare å starte installasjonen prosessen. Du vil bli bedt om å godta lisensen samt hvilke komponenter du ønsker å installere. Bare følg instruksjonene till OSSEC Agent Manager-vinduet vises.

Den OSSEC Agent Manager vinduet vil spørre deg om IP-adressen til OSSEC serveren. Det vil også be deg om Blowfish nøkkelen verdi å bruke, så ut på den aktuelle tasten på serveren og skriv verdien i dette feltet. Pass på at du sletter blir bedt om innen dette feltet før du limer inn i Blowfish nøkkelen. Ellers kommunikasjon med serveren kan mislykkes.

Deretter velger du "Manage" fra OSSEC Agent Manager-menyen, etterfulgt av "Start OSSEC". Du skal nå se "Status:" indikatoren endres til "Running ...".

Testing OSSEC

Når du har server og agent-programvare installert, startet og de riktige nøklene konfigurert, er det nå på tide å sjekke vårt oppsett. Kjør følgende kommando på OSSEC serveren:

cd / var / ossec / logs

Og sjekk ut ossec.log filen:

mindre ossec.log

Sjekk loggfilen for eventuelle feil. En vanlig feil er at OSSEC rapporterer den ikke kan sende e-post. Kontroller at e-postserver er i gang og at det er å godta tilkoblinger. Når du er fornøyd med server oppsett, er det nå på tide å sjekke ut agenter. Flytt ned til "varsler" katalogen:

cd varsler

Og sjekk ut alerts.log filen:

mindre alerts.log

Spesielt leter du etter oppføringer ligner på følgende:

2010 17 februar 16:09:16 (desktop) 192.168.1.10-> ossec

Rule: 501 (nivå 3) -> "New ossec agenten tilkoblet."

Src IP: (ingen)

Bruker: (ingen)

ossec: Agent startet: 'test_system-> 192.168.1.10'.

Du burde se en oppføring for hvert system som du installerte agenten programvare.

Mer kommer

Puh! Det er mer enn nok for ett innlegg! I mitt neste innlegg vil jeg komme inn utnytte Logwatch å analysere all varsling informasjonen blir generert av OSSEC.

Kombinere Logwatch og OSSEC - Del 2

16 februar 2010

I mitt siste innlegg beskrev jeg hvordan Logwatch kunne brukes til å forenkle loggen evalueringsprosess. I dette innlegget vil vi se på OSSEC og hva den bringer til bordet.

Hva er OSSEC?

OSSEC , kort for "Open Source Security", er en host basert Intrusion Detection System (HIDS). Med andre ord, det er designet for å oppdage angrep eller policy brudd hvis og når de oppstår. Selv om det ikke har evne til å beskytte mot ukjente eller 0-day angrep (som ville være host Intrusion Prevention), betyr det inkluderer et bredt utvalg av verktøy som kan hjelpe deg å identifisere en inntrenging når det skjer, samt omfanget av skaden som er forårsaket.

Støttede plattformer

Å dra nytte av alle funksjonene OSSEC har å tilby, må du kjøre en agent på systemet beskyttet. OSSEC agenter kan kjøres på Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, og et bredt spekter av UNIX-systemer. Hvis du bare er interessert i loggen analyse delen derimot, kan et enda bredere spekter av systemer skal støttes. Dette inkluderer maskinvare fra både Cisco og Juniper. En rekke konkrete produkter støttes også som Checkpoint brannmurer, Symantec Anti-Virus, Snort, blekksprut, og Arpwatch, bare for å nevne noen.

Når du installerer OSSEC har du to konfigurasjonsalternativer, lokale eller klient / server. En lokal installere brukes når du trenger for å kjøre alt på ett enkelt system. Klient / server installasjon lar deg kjøre et distribuert miljø beskytte flere systemer samtidig. Mens de fleste distribusjoner er klient / server basert, hvis du ønsker å gi OSSEC en spin du enkelt kan kjøre alt på en enkelt test system som bruker en lokal installasjon.

Log Analysis

OSSEC inkluderer en logg-basert Intrusion Detection System (LOKK). Dette har mulighet til å gjennomgå loggfiler i nær sanntid, mens gransker dem for kjente angrep mønstre. Når en logg er generert på et beskyttet system, tar agenten vare på sikkert overføre loggen (Blowfish kryptering ved hjelp av en pre-shared hemmelighet) tilbake til serveren. Serveren tar da vare på utfører analysen.

De fleste log analyseverktøy prosessen deres regler i en lineær format. Med det mener jeg om vi har 500 regler, er regelen en kontrollert, da regelen to, deretter regel tre og så videre til en match er funnet eller vi kommer til slutten av regelsettet. OSSEC fungerer litt annerledes som den implementerer en hieratical struktur til reglene. Loggoppføringer er først klassifisert og deretter sjekkes bare mot det som reglene er hensiktsmessige. Resultatet er at snarere enn å måtte behandle alle 500 regler, vil de fleste hendelsene få sjekket mot 10 regler eller mindre. Dette reduserer dramatisk mengden overhead kreves for å behandle regelsettet.

Integritet Kontrollere

OSSEC inkluderer et verktøy som heter Syscheck for å utføre fil og katalog integritet sjekking. Hvis du kjører en Windows-agent, kan du også inkludere spesifikke taster i Windows-registeret som skal overvåkes i tillegg. Filendringer kan oppdages med både MD-5 og SHA-1 hash algoritmer. Systemet er ekstremt tilpasses. Du kan inkludere eller ekskludere enkeltfiler eller hele katalogen strukturer. Du kan også sette et flagg for å oppdage nye filopprettelse.

Agenten Programvaren er designet for å bruke en minimal mengde av CPU under integritet sjekk. Selv om dette betyr at sjekken vil ta lengre tid, det hjelper også å minimere ytelsen hit til systemet. Hash informasjonen blir overført tilbake til serveren. Serveren tar da vare på utfører hash sammenligning for å se om noen av systemets kritiske filer har blitt endret. Serveren lagrer også en kopi av integritet sjekk politikken, slik at hvis politiske endringer er gjort på agent, kan de bli oppdaget og rapportert i tillegg.

Anomali deteksjon

OSSEC går langt utover logge sjekker å verifisere systemet integritet. Bruk politikk kan styres sentralt fra serveren, og deretter skjøvet ut til den aktuelle agenter. For eksempel kan du definere en policy om hvilke Windows-programmer er akseptable (Office, Firefox, osv.) og hvilke som ikke er (IM klient, Skype, osv.). Du kan selv definere akseptabelt konfigurasjon alternativer som bekrefter at NT hasher blir brukt til passord som er lagret men ikke LanMan hashes.

OSSEC inkluderer en rekke andre godsaker for å hjelpe verifisere en systemets integritet. For eksempel OSSEC har evnen til å utføre kommandoer fra agent og monitor utgang som blir generert. For eksempel kan du ha Linux agenten utføre "df" kommandoen med jevne mellomrom og generere et varsel hvis disk bruken overstiger 90%. En Windows eksempel kan være å ha OSSEC generere et varsel når filinformasjon er skrevet til alternative datastrømmer område av NTFS.

Aktiv Response

Endelig omfatter OSSEC evnen til å reagere når mistenkelig aktivitet blir oppdaget. Svarene kan genereres fra serveren eller agenten, som stadig du angir. Svarene kan være så snille som genererer en e-postvarsel, å være så proaktive som blokkerer en ekstern IP-adresse for en begrenset tidsperiode. Det finnes en rekke inkluderte aktiv respons scripts du kan tegne på, eller du kan enkelt skrive dine egne.

Sikker Arkitektur

Den OSSEC Forfatterne har gått langt for å sikre alle komponentene i produktet. Oppgaver som integritet sjekke utføres på serveren, snarere enn agent, slik at troverdigheten til hasher kan ikke bli kompromittert under et angrep. Prosesser er kjørt med lavest nivå av tillatelser mulig, og ulike kontoer brukes til å kjøre hver OSSEC komponent. Dette betyr at et kompromiss av en enkelt søknad innen OSSEC ikke umiddelbart vil føre til et kompromiss av full pakke. Videre er de fleste komponenter kjøre innenfor en chrooted fengsel slik at deres tilgang til systemet er ytterligere begrenset.

Siste ord

While OSSEC is a powerful tool, it is important to remember that it is a HIDS and not a log management solution. OSSEC can review log entries looking for suspicious patterns, but it will only save alert information. So while OSSEC will not replace your Security Information Management (SIM) solution, it can most certainly augment it. You can easily setup OSSEC to forward all alerts it generates to a central logging server .

While OSSEC is open source software, Trend Micro is primarily developing it. If you need commercial support, you can purchase a support contract through them at a reasonable fee.

More To Come

In my next installment we'll look at installing OSSEC and Logwatch. After that, we'll move into integrating the two together.

Combining Logwatch and OSSEC

February 15th, 2010

I recently had a student ask me a question regarding the integration of Logwatch with OSSEC. I felt like this was a complex and yet cool enough idea that it warranted a series of posts to cover it in full. So over the next few days I'll talk about each of these tools, how to integrate them together, as well as what additional security visibility can be gained once the process is complete.

What Is Logwatch?

Logwatch is an excellent open source tool for generating daily human readable log reports. Log entries tend to fall into one of three categories:

  • Stuff you know is evil
  • Stuff you know is normal and can be safely ignored
  • Everything else

It is that “everything else” category where Logwatch really shines. For the stuff we know is evil, we will setup some form of alerting system. For example we may write an alert signature that warns the security analyst when an account is being brute forced. But what about the attacks we don't know about or are not sure what they look like? This would be a clear example of that “everything else” category. The traffic is not normal, but we have not seen it before to have a signature waiting to generate an alert. Since we will be unable to catch the attack in real time, we will need to catch it during a daily log review.

Of course the problem with doing daily log reviews is that it is tedious and time consuming. I mean let's be honest, who really wants to spend their day reviewing one million plus log entries? Even if you did, are you sure you would actually catch the out of the ordinary traffic?

How It Works

What Logwatch does very well is permit you to reorganize your data into a format that is easier for humans to follow. Its real strength is that it permits you to move the stuff you understand out of the way (normal or evil), so that the unexpected log entries stand out like a sore thumb. In other words, Logwatch lets you summarize your log entries so the unusual stuff is easier to spot.

What I really love about Logwatch is that you don't lose anything. Many log review tools will only show you the stuff that has been pre-defined as being evil. The problem they all share is that when something evil but unexpected happens, it flies right under the wire. Because Logwatch lets you see everything, you no longer miss the unexpected.

Logwatch In Action

Lets discuss how Logwatch works using the SSH server service as an example. The scripts to deal with SSH have already been defined within Logwatch, so you do not need to do any tweaking to receive the features we are going to discuss.

When reviewing a log file, the first thing Logwatch does is reorganize log entries based on their message types. For example all Successful SSH logons are grouped together, as well as too many logon failures, refused connections, locked accounts, accounts without a proper shell, protocol mis-matches, etc. etc. etc. Once all the SSH messages are grouped by their type, the data is then summarized to reduce the amount of information being reported.

For example, the default is to summarize failed logon attempts by account and source IP. So a typical failed logon report section might look like this:

Failed logins from these:

bsmith/password from 1.2.3.4: 637 time(s)

jsmith/password from 1.2.3.5: 2 time(s)

So rather than having to review 639 log entries reporting a bad logon attempt, we have all the pertinent information summarized into three lines (if you include the title). Continue this process for all of the other SSH messages, and we have dramatically reduced the amount of time required to review our logs.

But what if something happens that Logwatch is not pre-programmed to recognize? When an unexpected log entry is found, Logwatch adds a section to the end of the service report called “Unmatched Entries”. So if we see this title in the SSH server section, we know some event has occurred that is either abnormal or unexpected for the SSH service. This could very well be some form of attack that we are not aware is making the rounds.

By focusing in on the unmatched entries section, we can quickly identify unexpected activity. As I stated earlier, this is really the main goal of doing daily log reviews. To find the stuff we don't expect which will sneak past our alerting system. Logwatch makes this process as quick and as painless as possible.

Feature Summary

In the above example I talked about doing daily log reviews, but to be honest Logwatch is highly customizable. You can specify any range you wish to use down to an interval of one second. For example let's say I'm investigating an intrusion rather than performing a daily log review. I could specify a range such as “2010/02/14 17:05:00 for that hour” to focus right in on the information that interest me. I can also focus in on one specific log file or service.

The detail level of the report is also customizable. Typically when you deal with security you get in the habit of always wanting the highest detail level of reporting. To be honest, with Logwatch a high level of detail is probably more than you will ever need. Personally I typically stick with “med” for medium and that works out nicely. You can also specify the reporting level as “low” or “high” or use a numeric range of 0-10 for a higher level of granularity (low =0, med=5, high=10).

Logwatch can be run automatically or as a manual process. Typically you will want to set it up to run automatically each day and summarize one day's worth of log entries. If you ever need to expand or focus the report, you can always run Logwatch from the command line while specifying exactly what you want to see. You can then use the “–save” option to specify a report name and directory location for storage.

More To Come

The above should give you a good idea as to the features Logwatch can bring to the table. In the next post I'll discuss OSSEC in the same level of detail. After that, I'll get into how to install each tool as well as how to integrate them together.

Setting Up A Security Information Management System-Part 6

August 20th, 2009

So far in this series we have covered:

  • Defining a scope and focus for your SIM
  • Importance of building instead of buying your first system
  • Architecture and capacity planning
  • Recommended phases of deployment
  • Selecting a centralized logging server platform
  • How to accept remote log entries
  • Facility, severity and priority
  • How to sort log messages
  • Konfigurere hvitevarer og operativsystemer sende loggoppføringene

Cool. Så vi har loggoppføringer for en rekke systemer som samles på en sentralisert server. Nå kommer den viktigste oppgaven, å utnytte denne informasjonen. Loggoppføringer vil bli gruppert i to kategorier; kritiske meldinger vi ønsker å vite om en gang, og loggoppføringer som vil bli tatt som en del av en vanlig gjennomgang prosess.

Svartelisting Vs. Hvitlisting

Ved gjennomgang loggmeldinger, har vi to mulige stillinger vi kan bruke. Den første kalles svartelisting. Med svartelisting metoden definerer vi hva som gjør en hendelse interessant nok til å rettferdiggjøre rapportering. Dette ligner på hvordan anti-virus programvare oppdager Malware eller prosessen vi bruker for å filtrere bort spam.

Som de fleste ting i livet, har svartelistet noen gode og dårlige sider. På pluss-siden, er det vanligvis ganske enkelt å skrive en signatur hvis vi vet hva vi ønsker å se etter. Signaturer kan være tett defineres til å bidra til å minimere antall falske positiver vi støter på. Problemet med svartelisting er at vi må vite hva vi leter etter. Hvis en ny angrep genererer en unik signatur vi aldri har møtt i det siste, vil en svartelisting system sannsynligvis glipp av arrangementet fordi ingen signatur har blitt definert.

Med hvitlisting vi definerer de hendelsene vi forstår, og deretter fokusere vår oppmerksomhet på den nye og unike loggmeldinger som er oppstått. På pluss-siden er vi langt mer sannsynlig å fange cutting edge angrep. Hvitlisting tendens til å være relativt bråkete men siden vi er bundet til å møte unike loggmeldinger som ikke indikerer en sikkerhets hendelse.

Så hvilken skal vi bruke? Godt forsvar i dybden praksis si oss til å bruke begge. ;)

Sanntids alarmering

Vi kan utnytte svartelisting å utføre sanntid varsling av arrangementet ønsker vi å bli gjort oppmerksom på så snart de oppstår. Svartelisting bør bare brukes for lavt støynivå typer arrangementer. Med andre ord, ønsker vi å holde fast med å skrive signaturer for hendelser som har en høy sannsynlighet for å være en sann sikkerhetsproblem. Gode ​​eksempler er:

  • Ulike påloggingsnavnet feil alle fra samme IP-adresse på kort tid
  • Flere HTTP 403 feil som blir generert av en enkelt IP på kort tid
  • Internal systems receiving many ICMP errors or TCP resets in a short amount of time

In order to perform real time alerting, we need software that will monitor the logs in real time. The log entries should be checked against defined signatures, which also indicate what to do when the event occurs.

Swatch

One of the easiest tools you can use for monitoring log entries is Swatch . Swatch is based on Perl. This means that while it is designed for UNIX and Linux systems, you can get it running on Windows if you have Perl installed. Simplicity is both Swatch's biggest strength and weakness. While Swatch is relatively easy to deploy, it is also somewhat limited in its functionality. Still, if you are new to logging, Swatch makes an excellent first tool for real time alerting.

To deploy Swatch, you will need to create a unique configuration file for every log file you wish to monitor. In the configuration file we will tell Swatch what to look for in that particular log file, and what to do when the event is detected.

For example, let's say we are going to have Swatch monitor the Web server's error log. We may wish to create an entry similar to the following in Swatch's configuration file for the error log:

# Look out for buffer overflows

watchfor /client denied by server configuration|File name too long/

mail=noc@fubar.org:webmaster@fubar.org,subject=Web server overflow attempt

The line beginning with a “#” is simply commentary on the signature. The watchfor line identifies which character string(s) we want to define as being interesting. In this particular rule we have defined two different strings, “client denied by server configuration” and “File name too long” as interesting. The pipe character between the strings acts as a logical “or”. If either string is encountered, the mail parameter defines two different e-mail addresses we should contact. The subject line of the e-mail will be “Web server overflow attempt”, while the body of the e-mail will be the actual log entry.

If there are other patterns we wish to detect, we could add additional watchfor and mail statements. If we want to do more than send an e-mail, the exec parameter can be used to execute any application located on the local system. The threshold parameter can also be used to rate limit the reporting of events.

Simple Event Coordinator (SEC)

SEC is an amazing alerting tool you can download from the main Web site . It supports BSD and Linux, and ships with a number of popular Linux flavors. SEC fully supports regular expressions and allows you to create extremely granular signatures.

The rule format is as followed:

type= Method of detection

ptype= Pattern type (regular expression, string match)

pattern= What to search for

desc= Description (can be a variable)

action= What to do when detected

There is an excellent archive of pre-written rules you can use that is well worth looking at. You can match on multiple patterns, define multiple thresholds, all while processing hundreds of log messages per second. About the only drawback of SEC is that you need a good understanding of regular expressions to use the tool effectively. Still, the tool can be far more powerful and flexible than Swatch.

Where can I get more alerting ideas?

I was involved with the creation of the original SANS Top 5 Log Reports . For the April, 2009 Log Summit I updated my presentation to break up report examples into low noise and high noise categories. Anything on the low noise list would make a good candidate for alerting. Anything in the high noise section is better monitored through daily reports.

Daily Reports

So we leveraged blacklisting to generate our real time alerts. We'll now leverage whitelisting to help highlight unknown but interesting traffic patterns within our daily reports.

When it comes to daily reports, we tend to gravitate towards the big numbers. What are the top 5 IPs transferring data? Which e-mail address sent the most messages? While the big numbers are certainly important, it has been my experience that the security events you need to worry about the most generate the fewest log entries. The smart attackers try very hard to remain hidden within the noise. So the only way to find them is to lower the signal to noise ratio.

I author the Perimeter Security track for SANS. One of the labs I have my students perform is to parse a 200,000 line log file. The goal is to spot the interesting patterns as well as formulate the review into an automated process. Most folks find the port scanner as it is pretty noisy. Some even spot the IP address performing application layer attacks against the Web server. What most people miss however, are the six lines that are a pretty clear indication that an internal system is already compromised and calling home for marching orders. How do you find those 6 lines? By whitelisting everything you understand and focusing on what ever is left.

So it is OK for our daily reports to give us pretty charts with big numbers. One of the reports however has to be able to move all the crud to the side so we can better spot the interesting patters.

Logwatch

One of the best tools for doing a daily log review is Logwatch . Logwatch will summarize all of the log patterns it understands, while highlighting anything without a predefined signature. Best way to understand this feature is to look at an example.

SSHD Killed: 2 Time(s)

SSHD Started: 1 Time(s)

Connections:

Failed logins from these:

msmith/password from 1.3.247.11: 6 time(s)

jsmith/password from 1.3.247.11: 5 time(s)

psmith/password from 1.3.247.11: 4 time(s)

Users logging in through sshd:

jjones logged in from sundown (1.3.247.9) using publickey: 146 Times(s)

jsmith logged in from dialup5533.wnskvtao.sover.net (216.114.181.200) using password: 1 Times(s)

jsmith logged in from dialup984.wnskvtao.sover.net (216.114.163.223) using password: 1 Times(s)

bjones logged in from charlie (1.3.247.11) using publickey: 444 Times(s)

jsmith logged in from 192.168.1.173 using password: 2 Times(s)

djones logged in from charlie (1.3.247.11) using password: 47 Times(s)

**Unmatched Entries**

Received disconnect from 148.64.147.168: 3: Key exchange failed.

Received disconnect from 216.114.160.132: 11: All open channels closed

scanned from 146.87.114.150 with SSH-1.0-SSH_Version_Mapper. Don't panic.

scanned from 211.184.226.99 with SSH-1.0-SSH_Version_Mapper. Don't panic.

In the above example Logwatch is being used to summarize SSH activity. It understands the service being stopped and started, failed logon attempts as well as successful logons. All this information is displayed in summary format so it is easier to digest. For example we do not know exactly when msmith incorrectly entered their password, but we see it happened six times, all from IP address 1.3.247.11. So instead of having six lines to digest, we only need to look at one. If we want to see each specific log entry, we can always refer back to the original logs.

Now look at the “Unmatched Entries” section. Each of these is an event that Logwatch does not have a signature for. Rather than ignore them, which would happen with a blacklist based system, they are summarized here for us to review. We then have the option to generate a signature for a specific entry so it will get categorized in a similar fashion to the process and logon sections.

Clearly this gives us the best of both worlds. The above report represents a bit over 650 lines worth of log entries, summarized down into an easy to read report. Most importantly, none of the log entries had to be ignored in order to produce this summary report.

Beyond daily reporting

You may also find it useful to perform long-term trend analysis and data mining on your log data. This may help to reveal patterns that normally go undetected when logs for a small snapshot in time (like 24 hours) is reviewed. Arguably one of the best tools available for dealing with lots of data is Splunk .

Splunk

Splunk is available as a free version that is limited to processing 500 MB per day, or you can invest in the commercial version that supports unlimited data processing. Splunk is extremely flexible at accepting data. It can act as a centralized logging server, or you can transfer files via a number of methods including FTP and HTTP. Once the data is received, Splunk indexes every field in each log file. This gives you unparalleled sorting and searching capability.

The full features are Splunk are too numerous to get into in this post. Check their site for a full list of supported features. What Splunk is extremely good at is manipulating and reporting on a huge number of log entries. It can index, search and report on billions of log entries per second. This makes it extremely useful for generating long-term trend reports or running saved searches for data mining purposes.

Exec Summary

We'll we've reached the end of the trail. Hopefully you feel like you have a better handle on how to deploy a centralized logging solution, as well as how to leverage it to better secure your environment. If you have any questions, please feel free to drop a comment. :)

Setting Up A Security Information Management System-Part5

August 14th, 2009

In my last post I discussed how a logging server uses a message's priority value to sort incoming log messages. In this installment I'll talk about testing connectivity, as well as how to get various gear on the wire to submit their log entries to a centralized server.

Requirements

In order for a system to submit log entries, it has to have support for Syslog. Log entries need to be transmitted in clear text to port UDP/514 on the logging server. If you are using rsyslog on the server, TCP/514 is acceptable as well.

Submitted long entries should include the following info:

  • A priority value (in <PRI> format) at the beginning of the payload
  • The name of the application submitting the log entry
  • The process ID used by the application
  • The body of the log messages

But to be honest, Syslog is not very fussy. It will attempt to record anything sent to its listening port as a long entry. If a priority value is not present, it will record the entry to whatever file is used for facility 1. Typically this is /var/log/messages.

Testing Connectivity

When deploying a new setup, I like to verify connectivity between the first few clients and the logging server. If logging is not working, you will want to be able to isolate the problem area. Typical problems include:

  • Client incorrectly configured
  • Firewall in the way (on the client, the wire, or the logging server)
  • Server incorrectly configured

You will want to monitor the messages file on the logging server to ensure the test log entry is received. On the logging server, run the following command:

tail -f /var/log/messages

Tail will open the log file read only and print the last five lines. As new log entries are received, they will get printed to the screen as well.

To generate a test log entry, I like to use Netcat . Netcat can be used from any Windows, Linux or UNIX system. From the test system, run the command:

echo 'this is a UDP test log entry' | nc -u -w 1 <IP address of logging server> 514

You should see the echoed portion of the command show up in the /var/log/messages file on the logging server. If not, launch a packet sniffer and see if you can determine where the failure is occurring. If you wish to test TCP connectivity as well, simply run the command again leaving out the Netcat “-u” switch:

echo 'this is a TCP test log entry' | nc -w 1 <IP address of logging server> 514

If both entries are received, we are ready to start pointing devices at our logging server.

Network hardware

Most network hardware supports Syslog via UDP/514. It is just a matter of going through the documentation and determining the proper command set for sending log entries to a remote server.

If you are using Cisco IOS, run the following from global configuration mode:

logging <IP address of logging server>

If you wish to change the logging facility from “local use 7” to something else, the command is:

logging facility <facility short name>

So to change logging facility to “local use 3”, the command would be:

logging facility local3

Linux and UNIX systems

There are a number of Syslog alternatives available for Linux and UNIX. In this section I'll cover how to get Syslog and rsyslog to forward their log messages to a remote server.

Syslog

If the client is running Syslog, you will need to edit the /etc/syslog.conf file. Add the following line to the bottom of the file:

*.* @<IP address of logging server>

So an example would be:

*.* @192.168.1.150

Note the white space between the wild card match and the remote IP address MUST BE TAB CHARACTERS . If you use spaces, Sysylog will not be able to parse the file. Save and exit the file, then restart Syslog to activate the changes.

rsyslog

With rsyslog we have the option of forwarding our log messages via UDP or TCP. In either case we will need to edit the /etc/rsyslog.conf file. To forward long entries using UDP, add the following line to the end of the file:

*.* @<IP address of logging server>:<port>

So an example would be:

*.* @192.168.1.150:514

If we wish to use TCP instead, we simply use two “@” symbols:

*.* @@192.168.1.150:514

Once complete save and exit the file. You will need to restart rsyslog to activate your changes.

Windows systems

As mentioned in a previous post, Windows does not include support for Syslog. This means you will need third party software to convert your logs in real time and submit them to a logging server. The Loganalysis Web site has a list of possible solutions.

For the purposes of this post, I'll cover Snare . It is free for use, can be commercially licensed, and have a very simple deployment process.

Once you download the software, you need to configure it for the system. This is shown in Figure #1. Snare needs to know the location of the logging server as well as what facility and severity level to use. Once complete, click the “Latest Events” menu potion to see which specific Event Viewer log entries Snare is forwarding to the logging server.

snare-config

Exec Summary

In this post I discussed testing connectivity to a logging server, as well as how to configure clients to centralize their logs. In the next post I'll talk about what to look for in a daily reporting tool, as well as real time alerting.

Setting Up A Security Information Management System-Part4

August 12th, 2009

In the last post I talked about how to setup a logging server that will accept remote log entries. In this installment I'll talk about how to sort log entries into specific files.

Facility, severity and priority

Let's talk about how logging servers figure out which file to store a log entry in when it gets received. Log messages contain two descriptive parameters, facility and severity. When these two parameters are combined, the value is referred to as the priority of the log message.

Facility

Facility defines the type of process that generated the log entry. For example all mail servers are expected to identify that their log entries are part of the “mail” facility. FTP processes should use the FTP facility, NTP processes should use the NTP facility, and so on. RFC 3164 defines the valid facilities, but here's the list:

Numerical Facility

Code

0 kernel messages (kern)

1 user-level messages (user) – default if not specified

2 mail system (mail)

3 system daemons (daemon)

4 security/authorization messages (auth)

5 internal syslogd (syslog)

6 line printer subsystem (lpr)

7 network news subsystem (news)

8 UUCP subsystem (uucp)

9 clock daemon

10 security/authorization messages (authpriv)

11 FTP daemon (ftp)

12 NTP subsystem (ntp)

13 log audit

14 log alert

15 clock daemon (cron)

16 local use 0 (local0)

17 local use 1 (local1)

18 local use 2 (local2)

19 local use 3 (local3)

20 local use 4 (local4)

21 local use 5 (local5)

22 local use 6 (local6)

23 local use 7 (local7)

The “local use” facilities are similar to private addresses in the IP world. These facilities are not reserved, and are available for anyone to use as they see fit.

Facility problems

There are a couple of problems here. To start, where is the Web server facility? This list was generated back in 1987 before Web servers (or Gopher for that matter) existed. So some of the services we use today (VoIP, SQL, etc.) are missing. Also, some of the listed services typically go unused in a corporate environment. UUCP and Network News (NNTP) are excellent examples.

The lack of current services has caused many vendors to rely heavily of the local use facilities. This can cause potential conflicts when we get into sorting our log entries. For example Linux uses local use 7 to identify its boot time log entries. Apache also uses local use 7 for Web server errors. So down the road it may be difficult for us to sort Web errors and boot messages into different log files.

Another problem is that there is no verbose description about each of these facilities. This can make it a bit difficult for a programmer to identify which one to use. For example, let's say we've written a program that authenticates a user for network access. Which facility should we use? Facility 4 and 10 seem the most likely, but their descriptions are identical. How do we choose? If our program runs as a background process should we actually choose facility 3 instead?

You get the idea. The list is not as clear-cut as it could be. It is not uncommon to see vendors use a different facility than you would expect. For example I've seen VPN vendors undecided as to the differences between facilities 4 and 10, so they simply send some percentage of log entries to each.

Severity

Severity defines the importance of the log entry. The same RFC 3164 defines the severity levels as:

Numerical Severity

Code

0 Emergency: system is unusable (emerg)

1 Alert: action must be taken immediately (alert)

2 Critical: critical conditions (crit)

3 Error: error conditions (error)

4 Warning: warning conditions (warn)

5 Notice: normal but significant condition (notice)

6 Informational: informational messages (info)

7 Debug: debug-level messages (debug)

Luckily the severity levels are far less vague than the facility descriptions. This means they are much less confusing to work with. The higher numbered severity levels tend to be very verbose. This means saying you want to send debug level messages to your logging server could easily flood the network. Use the higher numbered severity levels with caution.

Priority

When a log entry gets transmitted to a log server, the first value contained within it is the priority of the message. The priority is the facility and severity values combined per the following math formula:

( Facility x 8 ) + Severity = Priority

So lets say our mail server needs to send a warning message. What would the priority be? The mail facility has a value of 2, while warnings have a severity of 4. So the math would be:

( 2 x 8 ) + 4 = 20

If a print server (facility 6) needed to send a log entry saying it is currently on fire (severity 0), the priority value in the message would be:

( 6 x 8 ) + 0 = 48

When a log entry gets transmitted, the priority value needs to be encapsulated in less than and greater than signs. So the priority value in the above mail server message would be “<20>” while the print server would use “<48>”. Again, this needs to be the first piece of information transmitted in the log message.

Sorting log entries

The priority value is used by logging servers to sort the incoming messages. For example if we wanted all mail messages to go to the same file, we would tell our logging server that all messages with a priority of 16 (2×8+0) through 23 (2×8+7) should go to the “maillog” file. Most logging servers (like rsyslog) will let you do this numerically or by using the short description names.

rsyslog.conf example

Here are two lines out of the rsyslog.conf file that ships with Fedora. Let's talk about what they are actually doing:

authpriv.* /var/log/secure

*.info;mail.none;authpriv.none;cron.none /var/log/messages

These lines define two of the rules for determining which log entries should go to which log files. The syntax for sorting is:

facility.severity

So the first line says all facility 10 (authpriv) log entries, regardless of severity (“*” is a wild card match) should be sent to the file /var/log/secure.

The second line is a bit more complex as it has multiple conditions separated by semi-colons. These conditions state:

  • *.info = All facilities, so long as the severity level is info
  • mail.none = No mail facility log entries, regardless of severity
  • authpriv.none = No authprive facility log entries, regardless of severity
  • cron.none = No cron facility log entries, , regardless of severity

Or, to translate this to English, the line says “Send all severity “info” messages to /var/log/messages, except those that contain a facility of “mail”, “authpriv” or “cron”.

So with these rules we can define any combination of facility and severity values and which log file we would like to direct it. When you first set this up, stick with the defaults. As you start collecting log entries you can tweak the rules as you see fit.

Bending the RFCs

In an ideal world, the RFCs would be a perfect fit for everyone's needs. Unfortunately this is not always the case. A good example is the logging facilities. As mentioned we are missing facilitates for modern day services, while at the same time have facilitates that we will never use. An obvious answer is to recycle the outdated facilities in order to support modern services.

For example, UUCP ( facility 8 ) is not even supported by modern operating systems. With this in mind, I like to use it as my Windows facility. That way I can sort all Windows log entries into their own file. For network hardware, I use the network news facility (facility 7). If you are unsure if a facility is currently in use, modify your logging server's configuration file to send all log entries for that facility to a unique file:

ftp.* /var/log/facility-test

If no entries arrive, you are in good shape. Just keep in mind that a legitimate service may use it at a later date. For example if three months from now someone sets up an FTP server, we may have problems if we are already using the FTP facility (facility 11). If you are unsure you can always stick with the local use facilities, as that is what they are intended for. Local use 0 and 7 seem to be the most heavily used, so avoid them when possible.

Other sorting options

While its not part of the RFC, some logging servers give you the ability to sort log entries based on patterns within the message. A good example is Syslog-NG . Syslog-NG will sort based on facility and severity, but you can also sort based on source IP, the application that generated the log entry, etc. This gives you far more flexible sorting options and it may be something to consider if facility/severity is not granular enough for your needs.

Exec Summary

In this installment we talked about how facility and severity is used to sort log entries. In my next post I'll talk about how to get each of our systems to submit log messages to our centralized server.

Setting Up A Security Information Management System-Part3

August 11th, 2009

In the last post I covered some of the architecture concerns with rolling out a centralized security information system. In this post I'll cover deploying a basic log server, and verifying that it is ready to accept log entries.

Selecting a logging server

The first thing we need to do is select a platform for our logging server. If we are simply setting up a test lab, Windows, UNIX or Linux will all make great choices. Choosing Windows might be helpful for a Windows administrator, as they will not have to cut the curve on a new operating system while attempting to test out logging. While Windows does not support Syslog out of the box, there are some excellent packages like Kiwi Syslog Server and WinSyslog that will add Syslog support. Both have evaluation versions and are relatively inexpensive to license.

If we are talking about setting up a production server however, we will want to stay away from Windows. Windows is notorious for having a horrible IP stack. If fact previous “patches” have crippled it even further in the interest of slowing worm propagation and increasing the speed of the GUI. While many of these limitations have been removed in 2008 server and Windows 7, IP performance is still sub-par when compared to a Linux or UNIX system deployed on identical hardware.

So that leaves Linux and UNIX as choices for a production system. Which to choose will depend on personal choice. Some like the stability of BSD while others like the flexibility of Linux. For the purpose of this document I'll be working with a Fedora based Linux system. Installation and setup of the OS is relatively intuitive and straightforward.

Accepting remote logs

In order to accept log entries from remote systems, older versions of Fedora required you to initialize the Syslog daemon (syslogd) with the “-r” option. This was done by adding “-r” to the syslogd_options line of /etc/sysconfig/syslog file. Some versions of Linux still support legacy Syslog, and require you to add “-r” to the Syslog RC initialization file. Check the docs for your specific distribution.

New Fedora systems however support “Reliable Syslog” or rsyslog. Implementation is pretty similar to plain old Syslog, except rsyslog supports communications over TCP/514 as well as UDP/514. In the last post I described that running log entries over TCP can fix some of the reasons we loose log entries, but not all of them. If you want to play around with TCP support, go ahead and open both ports on the logging server.

To get rsyslog to accept remote log entries, we must edit the /etc/rsyslog.conf file. Towards the beginning of the file you should see the following:

# Provides UDP syslog reception

#$ModLoad imudp.so

#$UDPServerRun 514

# Provides TCP syslog reception

#$ModLoad imtcp.so

#$InputTCPServerRun 514

The “#” (pound) symbol at the beginning of the line tells the system not to process the rest of the line. We use this technique for commentary as well as “commenting out” commands we do not wish to have processed. By commenting out the ModLoad and port specification lines, we prevent rsyslog from opening a listening socket. The helps to keep the system in a more secure state.

Since we are setting up a centralized logging server, we will need to open those sockets to accept remote log entries. Modify the /etc/rsyslog.conf file to remove the appropriate pound symbols. The file should now look like this:

# Provides UDP syslog reception

$ModLoad imudp.so

$UDPServerRun 514

# Provides TCP syslog reception

$ModLoad imtcp.so

$InputTCPServerRun 514

If you know you will never use TCP, you can leave the last two lines commented out. Once complete save your changes and exit the file.

We now need to restart logging so our changes are implemented. This is done on Fedora by executing the following command:

service rsyslog restart

When you execute the command, you should see rsyslog stop and start with a status of “OK”. If the shutdown failed, it is because rsyslog is not being initialized at boot time. From the command line, execute the command “setup” and select “System services” from the main menu. When the services menu appears, scroll down the list till you find rsyslog. Check off the box to the left and then select “OK”. Quit the setup utility and rsyslog will now initialize whenever the system is booted.

Verifying the listening port

Next we need to ensure that our logging process is accepting remote log entries. From the command line, type “netstat -an | grep :514”. The output should look similar to the following:

[root@fubar ~]# netstat -an | grep :514

tcp 0 0 0.0.0.0:514 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN

tcp 0 0 :::514 :::* LISTEN

udp 0 0 0.0.0.0:514 0.0.0.0:*

udp 0 0 :::514 :::*

The first line tells us that TCP/514 is listening via IPv4 on all network interfaces. Line two tells us the TCP port is also listening on any interface with an Ipv6 address. Lines three and four are the same information, except for UDP. If any of the entries state “127.0.0.1:514” instead of “0.0.0.0:514”, then the port is only bound to the loopback interface. Only the local system will be able to reach it. This can happen with legacy Syslog systems if you forgot to run them with the “-r” switch.

You should now have a logging server that is capable of receiving inbound log entries. In the next post I'll talk about how these log entries get sorted into specific files.

Setting Up A Security Information Management System-Part2

August 10th, 2009

In my last post we discussed defining your goals for a Security Information Management (SIM) system. In this post we'll talk about architecture concerns as well as capacity planning.

Network communications

The goal will be to have one or more SIM servers that will collect log entries from other systems. This will obviously have an impact on network utilization. How much of an impact will depend on the quantity and type of systems we collect log entries from.

UDP/514

Just about all systems support the original Syslog communication implementation which goes all the way back to the year 1988. The last description of this spec appeared in RFC 3164 . While this RFC has been obsoleted by RFC 5424 , RFC 3164 still represents the implementation supported by most vendors. Windows is a notable exception (proprietary, no Syslog support), but there is 3rd party software to rectify this.

Both RFCs specify the use of the UDP protocol when transmitting log entries. The well-known port to use is UDP/514. Where RFC 3164 and 5424 differ is in the format of the log message. I'll dig into these differences in a later post.

The love/hate of using UDP

On the positive side, UDP is connectionless. This means that it generates less traffic than if we used TCP. Also, log transmissions are a one-way process. The host generating a log entry sends a packet to the logging server, but the logging server never replies. This means we can control traffic flow with static filtering rather than stateful filtering which will place less overhead on the traffic control device. Also, the UDP header is typically 1/3 – 1/4 the size of a TCP header, which means smaller transmission packets, thus less network overhead.

On the negative side, UDP is connectionless. ;) This means that it has minimal error reporting capability. For example if we transmit a log entry and the frame goes missing (say a collision or a firewall dropping the packet), UDP does not have the ability to detect that a retransmission is required. This means its possible for log entries to go missing if we overflow the network. Further, UDP has no flow control ability. If the SIM server recognizes it is reaching capacity it has no way to slow down the incoming transmission of log entries. The SIM server's only option is to throw the packets away without processing them.

Needless to say, we need to ensure that we properly specify capacity. If the network or the SIM server becomes overloaded, we are going to lose log entries. Proper capacity planning starts with understanding the impact of logging on the network.

Network impact of logging

The maximum size of a UDP Syslog packet has different specifications in different RFC's. The outdated RFC 3164 defines the maximum message size as being 1,024 bytes. RFC 5426 drops this maximum size to 480 bytes. If a vendor is still following the old spec, its possible they may still think the 1,024 byte size is legitimate. It has been my experience however that most log entry packets range in size from 75 to 225 bytes, so the maximums are a non-issue.

Windows systems, firewalls and intrusion detection systems tend to generate the largest messages. Network hardware tends to generate the smallest messages. If we have a 100 Mb Ethernet network, the theoretical maximum would be somewhere around 50,000 to 130,000 frames per second. This assumes zero other traffic, which is rarely the case. For the purposes of capacity planning, assume you will be limited to 5,000 log entries per second. This number might even be less if you have a busy network. Taking some utilization measurements during the planning process is key.

Syslog over TCP

As mentioned above, UDP introduces the problem that log entries can become lost without us even knowing it. There are ways to validate capacity, which I will cover in a later post. Some feel running Syslog over TCP can rectify this problem. TCP can be leveraged for its reliability to insurie our log entries are properly received.

Unfortunately TCP support for Syslog is no were near standardized. Some vendors support TCP by simply listening on TCP/514. RFC 3195 defines Reliable Syslog as using port TCP/601, but its adoption has been extremely limited. RFC 5425 defines the use of TLS to secure Syslog transmission. This RFC specifies the use of port TCP/6514. This is a brand new specification and I'm unaware of anyone supporting it just yet.

So support for TCP is all over the board. Further, TCP does not completely fix the problem. While TCP will give us flow control and reliability on the wire, it cannot make up for the fact that Syslog at the application layer does not acknowledge the receipt of log entries. This was by design as it reduces overhead. The problem is that even by using TCP we can still lose messages within the IP stack and never know it is occurring.

So if you want to try and transmit logs via TCP, its only going to work between a specific vendor's client and server software. For example you may need to run Syslog-NG on both ends of the connection to leverage it's support for TCP. This is not always practical, as you cannot run the software client on appliances like access points, switches, routers, etc.

Where to place the logging server

When deciding where to place the logging server, we have to keep both network capacity and security in mind. Take a look at Figure #1. This is an ideal situation where the logging server has been isolated to a dedicated network operations network. This isolates it from the other security zones and makes it much easier to leverage the firewall to restrict access to the logging server.

sim-placement

The drawing assumes we only need one logging server for our entire environment. What if we have 100,000 nodes to keep track of? Large networks may need to look at aggregating the data. For example if I have 10 field offices, I may need to have a logging server located at each of them collecting local log info. Each of these logging servers would then relay summary information back to the corporate office for network wide trend reports. This way we maintain a high level of visibility while reducing network load. I'll cover some possible aggregation options in a later post.

How many systems can log to a single logging server?

There is no single answer to this question as each network is different. It is going to depend on how much capacity is available on your network and how many log entries each of these systems generate. For example I could probably point 50,000 switches at a single logging server, as switches tend to generate very few messages. Firewalls on the other hand are extremely chatty, so I might max out the network or SIM server with only 20-50 firewalls. So to answer the question we need to look at two metrics:

  • How much free capacity is there on the wire?
  • How many log entries will each host generate?

The second question is not as straightforward as it may seem. For example the average desktop may only generate 40-100 log entries per day. If we can push 1,000 log entries per second, the math says we should be able to point 86 million desktops at a single logging server. The problem is about 80% of those messages are generated at initial boot time. If everyone typically powers around 9:00 AM, the math changes to a more realistic 750 desktops (again, assuming we can push 1,000 log entries per second over the wire).

So we can't just look at quantity of long entries. We need to take time of day into account as well. This will identify the actual number of log entries per second we can expect under worse case conditions. Worse case is the capacity level we need to plan for.

Deploy centralized logging in phases

If you have tens of thousands of systems to deal with, it is easy to get overwhelmed with the work involved with deploying centralized logging. Rolling out the solution in phases makes it easier to wrap your brain around the whole process.

First, start with a single logging server. You may not be able to cover your whole network, but we have to start somewhere. Large networks should consider a deployment at the corporate office first, moving out to field offices once the corporate system is fully vetted and functional.

You will also want to phase in which devices you are collecting information from. I usually go with the following order:

  1. Network intrusion detection systems
  2. Firewalls
  3. Network hardware (routers, switches, access points, print servers, etc.)
  4. Internet facing servers
  5. Internal servers
  6. Internal desktops

Obviously you can tweak this list to fit your needs. For example if you do not plan on collecting info from desktops, simply leave that step out. I like to start with network intrusion systems first as their log entries are well suited for vetting both daily reports and real time alerting. Once we have a handle on alerting and reporting, adding additional devices becomes far easier.

Exec Summary

In this post I covered all the things you need to consider when initially deploying a centralized logging solution. We covered how to predict the impact it will have on network utilization, how to calculate the number of hosts per logging server, and why it is important to deploy the solution in phases. In the next post we'll start talking about configuring the centralized logging server. Specifically, we'll look at how we are going to sort log entries.

Setting Up A Security Information Management (SIM) System – Part 1

August 8th, 2009

I get a lot of logging related questions. So much so that I decided to do a series on how to deploy log management. There are some excellent logging resources on the Internet, but they are fragmented in scope and/or vendor specific (usually written by the vendors). I wanted to create something vendor neutral that holds your hand through the entire process of deploying a log management solution.

Why should I deploy a security information management system?

Let's be candid, deploying log management is hard and painful. This is the reason why so many administrators avoid it like the plague. It is difficult to deploy and a wild buck for performing long term administration. Weekly trips to the dentist would probably be more pleasurable.

With all that said, log management is probably the single most effective security solution you can deploy. You can't drop it and forget it like a firewall, but log management can give you unrivaled visibility into the inner workings of your network. When its not providing insight into security events you might otherwise miss, it is doing double duty helping you troubleshoot communication and system issues. A logging system can be resource intensive, but it can also provide a very high rate of return.

Why do you want a SIM?

Before we begin, the first question you have to ask yourself is why do you want a SIM solution . Do you want to improve security or is there a compliance specification you need to adhere to? It might seem odd to want to distinguish between the two, but the requirements are drastically different. Standards are far easier (and cheaper) to meet than true security.

Standards such as PCI-DSS require you to log user, application and network activity. However they tend to be very vague in how that information gets processed. You can usually get away with dropping in a black box, generating some colorful management reports, and be considered “compliant”. It may not help you find that backdoored system that's calling home, but you've met the standard.

Standards tend to focus on the lowest common denominator. They need to be applicable for a wide range of audiences, including businesses without a lot of resources. Rather than evaluating a specific organization's risk and basing the requirements on that, we set the bar low so it is achievable by small and large organizations alike.

Also, to simplify the process, we tend to focus on checklists. Checklists are cool because they tell you exactly what needs to be done to be complaint. If an auditor can put a checkmark next to all the items, you pass the testing. The problem is checklists tend to focus on symptoms, not the actual problem.

I'll give you a great example. I had a client bring in a Qualified Security Assessor to certify them for PCI-DSS. This was one of my clients running a strict implementation of application control, so they could show a year and a half history of zero Malware infections. While they certainly received Malware over that time, we could prove that there were zero instances of actual infection as every Malware attack was immediately contained and eliminated. Not many businesses can claim a year+ with zero Malware infections.

The auditor failed them. PCI-DSS requirement #5 states: “anti-virus software must be used on all systems commonly effected by Malware”. Since they ran application control, not anti-virus, they were deemed non-compliant. If requirement 5 had been written to identify an acceptable threshold for Malware containment, they certainly would have met the specification. However risk evaluation and metrics do not make for easy checklist items.

So if you want to deploy a SIM to actually augment security in your environment, it is going to take longer and require more work than simply meeting a specification.

Should you build your own SIM?

I'ma firm believer that anyone considering a SIM solution should start by building his or her own. While there are some decent commercial SIM solutions out there, they isolate you from the inner works of the logging process. This can be a good thing in that it saves you time. The problem is you will not learn as much.

Also, log management deployment is a journey. You will find in the course of a rollout that your requirements may change. Information you initially thought was important, all of a sudden is not. Reports you didn't even think of, all of a sudden jump to the top of the list. By building your own system you will have more flexibility to make changes on the fly. If you later decide you want a commercial solution, you are now better informed of your requirements and can do a better job evaluating a potential purchase. This is important, as many log solutions are expensive. You don't want to drop a lot of money on a solution that will not meet your long-term needs.

I'll give you a good example. Most of the sites I've worked with initially think failed logons are important and want to see the reports. It does not take them long to figure out seeing all failed logons is a complete waste of time as everyone fat fingers the keyboard on occasion. They then realize they want some thresholds around the data. For example they only want to see failed logons if three or more failures are seen in five seconds (indicating an automated attack). Or only show failed logons when multiple logon names are used from the same source IP (indicating a password guessing attack). So by dealing with some information overload, they become better skilled at defining exactly what they wish to see.

Summary

OK, so we've covered defining a focus (security Vs. standards requirement) as well as the importance of initially building your own system. In the next installment I'll get into architecture and capacity planning.