FTP Hacking on the Rise

yahoi writes "The disco-era File Transfer Protocol (FTP) is making a comeback, but not in a good way — spammers are now using the old-school file transfer technology to serve up bot malware, and even as a backdoor into some enterprises that neglect to lock down their oft-forgotten FTP servers. Researchers at F-Secure have spotted a new wave of exploits that use FTP — rather than a malicious URL, or an email attachment — to deliver their malware payloads because few gateways scan for FTP attachments these days."

What's next?

[by Anonymous Coward]

Gopher?

Re:What's next?

[gnick (1211984)]

Gophers are actually not that hard to hack, although most of my experience is with prairie dogs. About 250 yards out with a decent scope and 'opening a port' is not that hard. Known exploit.

Re:

[PitaBred (632671)]

Every try opening a port with a .30-06? You don't have much left to hack...

Re:What's next?

[ObsessiveMathsFreak (773371)]

WARNING: Attempting to hack Groundhogs may result in an infinite loop.

Re:

[CronoCloud (590650)]

nobody has a client that can handle it anymore

Actually Lynx, Camino, Konqueror, Firefox, Mozilla/Seamonkey suite, and IE7 can all handle Gopher.

Uh oh

[B3ryllium (571199)]

Further proof that FTP is for chumps. :) scp to the rescue!

Re:

[Brian Gordon (987471)]

SCP? Still disco-era. Try sftp, might as well since we tunnel every other service under the sun through ssh.

Re:Uh oh

[B3ryllium (571199)]

Disco-era? It was first implemented in 1995. That's the New Kids era, not the Disco era.

Re:Uh oh

[winkydink (650484)]

Agree. The disco era ended sometime in the late 70's / early 80's. Of course, that's before half of the /. posters were born, so it's understandable that they wouldn't know this.

Hey! You! Get off my lawn!

Re:Uh oh

[by Anonymous Coward]

The disco era ended sometime in the late 70's / early 80's.

It didn't end, it just got too cool for you.

-- Disco Stu

Re:

[nschubach (922175)]

Disco is NOT dead. Disco is LIFE!

Re:Uh oh

[fizzup (788545)]

I think you may have misunderstood. RFC 114 refers to FTP, which is from the 70s. The poster was talking about scp, which is certainly from the mid-90s.

Now, whether 1971 counts as disco-era is another question. I would say that it is pre-disco, since every school child knows that the disco era started with Soul Makossa [wikipedia.org] in 1973.

Pay more attention...

[timbck2 (233967)]

GP was talking about scp being implemented in 1995, not FTP.

Re:

[B3ryllium (571199)]

Yes, you're correct, except for the fact that the GP had called SCP "disco-era", in apparent disregard for the context of that phrase's usage. I was merely correcting the timeframe of SCP's inception.

Re:Uh oh

[HTH NE1 (675604)]

Hmm, scp has built-in support for transfering an entire directory with one command natively, but sftp can be used to transfer files between two servers while being controlled from a third site such that the transfer doesn't pass through the controlling client (useful for maintaining from a dial-up connection two high-speed servers that don't grant shell access).

Decisions, decisions.

Re:

[Critical Facilities (850111)]

Yeah, cause no one [networkworld.com] uses [gatech.edu] FTP [leo.org] anymore [redhat.com], right [slackware.com]?

Re:Uh oh

[ivan256 (17499)]

Some of us don't care to waste cycles encrypting data that doesn't need to be encrypted.

Re:Uh oh

[B3ryllium (571199)]

... you probably recycle your waste electrons, too, don't you?

Nothing wrong with ftp

[koffie (174720)]

except perhaps for the sloppy authentication in the clear and the awkward use of random ports initiated in the wrong direction (from server to client).

What is wrong is that there are ftp servers allowing anonymous write access. That is how those miscreants work: they put a malicious file up on an anonymous ftp server (that allows write access) and then craft ftp URLs to spam people with.

I remember we warned all ftp server administrators about the issue 10 or more years ago, back when I was a rookie.

Of course scp/sftp is way better, everyone knows that. Or not?

Re:

[B3ryllium (571199)]

"Disco-era" is meant literally in the case of the original post, since its advent coincides with that of disco music.

And being one of the most widely used protocols doesn't mean it's not for chumps. It just means there are a lot of chumps.

Big deal..

[Junta (36770)]

First off, since when is a 'URL' considered a transport mechanism rather than syntax for specifying a transport mechanism and location? Is ftp://whatever.example.com/badcode/ [example.com] not a URL because it's ftp now? That's a goofy statement.

And then, this isn't about ftp being hacked, just that bad software is being hosted using ftp as well as http (which I presume is what is meant by 'URL' or being emailed.

And, ftp is not merely an ancient, deprecated protocol. It's still widely used because it does what is intended for well and works under high load readily.

Re:

[Ed Avis (5917)]

It's true that ftp works reliably under high load. Then again, so does http. If you just want to serve some files to an anonymous public, I can't see much reason to not just put them in a directory and let Apache serve them - or some faster web server if you really have such a fast network link that Apache can't saturate it.

For authenticated file transfers, is there any reason to use ftp instead of the ssh file transfer protocol (sftp)?

Re:

[PlusFiveTroll (754249)]

Yes because http is the best way to download a directory of uncompressed files all at once

Stuffing everything in a big compressed file sucks for dial up users, ftp has its purpose.

Re:Big deal..

[garett_spencley (193892)]

"For authenticated file transfers, is there any reason to use ftp instead of the ssh file transfer protocol (sftp)?"

Unfortunately there's a lot of software that simply does not support ssh/scp/sftp and will only work with FTP. Joomla is an example of a CMS that uses FTP to update template files and such that the web server can not write to. In this case you create an FTP server that listens on 127.0.0.1:21 and the PHP script, run under the web server user, FTPs to the host and logs in under a different user to upload the changes.

I've also got some business software that I run on my local machine that FTPs to my web server to upload new files. I really wish it would support ssh but it doesn't.

Maybe ssh tunnels are the way to go for such situations ? Either way FTP is still used for such circumstances. These programmers really need to get with the times.

Re:Big deal..

[Mr. Sketch (111112)]

is there any reason to use ftp instead of the ssh file transfer protocol (sftp)?

Well, since no version of Windows I know of comes with SSH/SCP/SFTP support out of the box, I think you have your reason right there. People don't want to have to download third party programs to do what they consider basic tasks, so providers fall back to protocols that have wide support (HTTP/FTP). Bittorrent seems to be an anomaly in this argument, but probably because it has more uses.

Re:

[Hatta (162192)]

I trust the security of vsftpd more than I do apache.

And the newest exploit...

[downix (84795)]

They have conquered WWW and Email, now FTP, next on their list... NTP! Yes, hacking through your clock, I can see it now! Malware which will make you either cronically early, or late!

Re:And the newest exploit...

[Frozen Void (831218)]

google "NTP exploit"

ntpd-exp.c

[commodoresloat (172735)]

Check it out [osdir.com]. That, my friends, is a real Clock Gobbler.

Re:

[sm62704 (957197)]

They have conquered WWW and Email, now FTP, next on their list... NTP! Yes, hacking through your clock, I can see it now! Malware which will make you either cronically early, or late!

They alrteady did! [slashdot.org]

Re:And the newest exploit...

[skeeto (1138903)]

Actually, the OpenBSD guys believed the original NTP implementation to be a security risk and thus created their own: see Using OpenNTPD [openbsd.org] and this post [advogato.org] by the OpenNTPD maintainer.

Different protocol, but same stupidity

[DigitalSorceress (156609)]

Well, for my money, anyone who blindly clicks on a link.... FTP or HTTP and runs an executable that comes from it is going to get infected regardless of what protocol was used for it.

The fact that a lot of gateways prevent certain actions based on the protocol just makes the "any key" users blindly click on stuff without worry - after all, they've "got protection"

When it comes to any infection vector that involves social engineering, your brain (should you choose to use it) is your best virus protection.

FTP attachments?

[by Anonymous Coward]

because few gateways scan for FTP attachments these days.

Er, that's because there's no such thing as an FTP attachment? If you are referring to links, then I'm not aware of any virus checkers that automatically download and check HTTP links either.

Can anybody translate this into something that makes sense?

Re:

[phaunt (1079975)]

because few gateways scan for FTP attachments these days.

Er, that's because there's no such thing as an FTP attachment? If you are referring to links, then I'm not aware of any virus checkers that automatically download and check HTTP links either.

Can anybody translate this into something that makes sense?

I believe the writer of the summary has mixed up two things:

• Gateways don't bother with FTP traffic
• Instead of malicious attachments, e-mails include links to ftp servers.

Re:

[plague3106 (71849)]

Er, that's because there's no such thing as an FTP attachment? If you are referring to links, then I'm not aware of any virus checkers that automatically download and check HTTP links either.

Can anybody translate this into something that makes sense?

Yes, virus checkers can check the HTTP stream and abort the download if they find something. I think Norton was doing this in early 2001, I don't know if they still are.

Re:

[WK2 (1072560)]

Can anybody translate this into something that makes sense?

OK. Via spam, F-Secure found a malware web page with an ftp link. They think this is going to be a trend. Some businesses proxy http connections, and scan downloads for viruses. They believe that malware authors will shift away from http to ftp because there is a less likely chance that downloads will be scanned.

I don't see this happening. It is speculation, and I think malware authors will just use whatever servers they have access to, or whatever they know how to set up. Few organizations scan http or

FTP Attachment?

[flajann (658201)]

What the hell is a "FTP attachment"?
Doesn't make sense.

Re:

[Ferzerp (83619)]

Every get the feeling that the summary was written by someone who doesn't quite grasp all the relevant details of the topic?

After that atrocious summary, I couldn't be bothered with RTFA

Re:

[Blue Stone (582566)]

>What the hell is a "FTP attachment"?

Doesn't make sense.

I've only skimmed the summary, but from what I can tell it's something bad that you can get from the tubes like a malicious 'IM file' or a dodgy 'virus bug' that you might get from a pirated CD or something.

Dear Internets

[phoxix (161744)]

Lets kill FTP once and for all! It doesn't serve a purpose anymoar! Its been replaced with HTTP, Rsync, and BT!

k thx bye!

Re:

[Anne Thwacks (531696)]

Not to mention NYC!

Re:

[nacturation (646836)]

Please explain how to upload pages to a shared webserver in co-lo using BitTorrent.

WebDAV over SSL doesn't require FTP.
 

F-Secure are FUDmeisters

[Werrismys (764601)]

Just ignore them. It's good business for them to constantly cry "wolf".

Re:F-Secure are FUDmeisters

[IBBoard (1128019)]

And it's all in the final line of TFA:

Better make sure your gateway scanner is configured to scan FTP traffic as well. Our F-Secure Internet Gatekeeper does this by default.

"This wasn't done as a sales pitch, but buy our Gatekeeper software!"

So what's the major difference between an FTP hosted file and a HTTP hosted file for most people? Either way it downloads a file from a site that they can be convinced to run. Sounds all about the same to me.

NEXT!

[Frosty Piss (770223)]

I'm sorry, but if when setting up server services the admin "forgets" to lock down FTP, they need to be canned. That is all. NEXT.

FTP through email

[whitehatlurker (867714)]

This has come full circle - back before internet connectivity was so wide spread, there were a few ftp via email gateways. (Yes, there were other networks alongside the internet.) You'd send your ftp commands and get email back (a few days later or the next week) with the uuencoded result.

Now you have email viruses delivered via FTP. Cool.

Yeah I'm old - get off my lawn!

FTP is BAD! About DAMN time THAT makes press

[spitek (942062)]

Clear TXT PASSWD = BAD Might as well bend over. I've made my hosting customers use SFTP/SCP for YEARS. Been very happy I have. Just like POP3 one day.. IF we are lucky people will stop using it. It's like sending your tax return to the IRS in a clear envelope with your name birth date and SS # showing. Just plan STUPID!

Re:

[Aceticon (140883)]

Well, when the username is "guest" and the password is "[e-mail]" it hardly needs encrypting.

PS: The typical way to anonymously access and FTP server is using the "guest" or "anonymous" usernames and any e-mail address as password. This is actually the way a browser will access an ftp:// [ftp] URL.

What the article infers...

[johnlcallaway (165670)]

It sounds like that 'trusted' sites have been hacked, and that nefarious forces may place files on those trusted sites, then send emails that look authentic. That is, the email looks like it is from a responsible site and has an FTP URL for that site, but the file on the trusted site contains malware of some type.

I have gotten fake hallmark cards in the past, and only because the URLs were obviously not hallmark did I check the headers. Transform this into a malware that installs a back door, grabs your address book, then sends the address book full of trusted names back to the originator. Now you have an email from a trusted source that has URLs to a trusted site to help spread it.

Maybe I shouldn't have typed all that out.....

Got hit by it

[ajs318 (655362)]

My company got hit by this. Basically, someone found a username / password combination on a web server and FTP'ed up a phishing website. This user didn't have a valid login shell {it was set to /bin/false} but that didn't matter here because they didn't need to run shell commands {and in any case, if they needed to, they had a perfectly good cgi-bin directory they could use}.

Obviously you have to have FTP and web servers on the same machine, otherwise your hosting customers can't upload their pages. To limit the potential damage, disable mod_userdir -- all your users should already have their own domain names anyway. And if you have any "email only" users {usually, these will be secondary mailbox accounts, i.e. when you have things like [e-mail] going into one mailbox and [e-mail] going into another} whose only way of accessing files is by POP3 or IMAP, use a different shell for them. {I recommend /bin/true for FTP-enabled users without shell access -- this needs to be mentioned in /etc/shells, of course, for FTP access to work -- and /bin/false for non-FTP users. This should not be in /etc/shells.}

If you have users who want to use scp or fish to upload stuff, they'll have to have a Bourne-like shell such as /bin/bash or /bin/ash. In which case, as a bare minimum you should disable password-based logins. There are better solutions involving chroot and per-user bin folders.