Rob-
You answered your own question. The only possibly answer is they sniffed
your password. If you are using FTP across the internet from untrusted
networks, it's not unlikely this will happen. If you must use FTP , use
it on your internal network only or use read-only accounts. From outside
world, use sftp or scp.
-----Original Message-----
From: Rob klein Gunnewiek [mailto:rob.kleingunnewiek@gmail.com]
Sent: Sunday, October 31, 2004 4:20 AM
To: incidents@securityfocus.com
Subject: Strange FTP logs
Hello,
Awhile ago I checked my logs which i do now a lot more often than
before. Anyways I found very suspicious log-entries. I use pure-ftpd
which is rather secure and I had created an account "pgo" in about
februari 2004, which was used for my school project group to store
project documents. Now, i'm not new to security at all, I use very
strong passwords so I think we can easily rule out that "pgo"'s password
had been guessed (found no signs of brute-force in the logs aswell).
Well.. the pgo account wasn't used anymore since about a month and then
I saw that there were logins from over 50 different IP addresses from
all over the world (logs are appended). I put alot of effort into
tracing them back, most were open proxies, some seem to be rather secure
hosts that didn't seem to be used as open proxies.
I first expected this to be just some warez group and that somehow
school computers were backdoored by someone of them, but the logs are
very strange. I kept the account open to see what they would do, but
they didn't come back.. although there was no reason they shouldn't.
I show you the log here and note the strange behavior these clients
make, removed many loglines that were less interesting as there are 304
loglines:
---
Oct 3 15:03:48 www pure-ftpd:
(?@AStrasbourg-106-1-6-77.w81-50.abo.wanadoo.fr) [INFO] pgo is now
logged in Oct 3 15:04:10 www pure-ftpd:
(pgo@AStrasbourg-106-1-6-77.w81-50.abo.wanadoo.fr) [INFO] Logout. Oct 3
15:04:13 www pure-ftpd:
(?@AStrasbourg-106-1-6-77.w81-50.abo.wanadoo.fr) [INFO] pgo is now
logged in Oct 3 15:04:39 www pure-ftpd:
(pgo@AStrasbourg-106-1-6-77.w81-50.abo.wanadoo.fr) [INFO] Logout. Oct 3
15:04:42 www pure-ftpd:
(?@AStrasbourg-106-1-6-77.w81-50.abo.wanadoo.fr) [INFO] pgo is now
logged in Oct 3 15:04:51 www pure-ftpd:
(pgo@AStrasbourg-106-1-6-77.w81-50.abo.wanadoo.fr) [INFO] Logout. Oct 3
15:05:15 www pure-ftpd:
(?@AStrasbourg-106-1-6-77.w81-50.abo.wanadoo.fr) [INFO] pgo is now
logged in Oct 3 15:05:37 www pure-ftpd:
(pgo@AStrasbourg-106-1-6-77.w81-50.abo.wanadoo.fr) [INFO] Logout.
----
The above IP continues to login and logout without uploading/downloading
anything
----
Oct 3 15:23:21 www pure-ftpd: (?@wc-142.r-195-85-157.essentkabel.com)
[INFO] pgo is now logged in
Oct 3 15:23:53 www pure-ftpd:
(pgo@wc-142.r-195-85-157.essentkabel.com) [NOTICE]
/home/users/pgo/public_html//2004-2005/filelist.html downloaded (4123
bytes, 2574.54KB/sec) Oct 3 15:26:02 www pure-ftpd:
(pgo@wc-142.r-195-85-157.essentkabel.com) [NOTICE]
/home/users/pgo/public_html//cw.txt uploaded
(211 bytes, 5.41KB/sec)
Oct 3 15:26:05 www pure-ftpd:
(pgo@wc-142.r-195-85-157.essentkabel.com) [NOTICE] Deleted cw.txt Oct 3
15:29:03 www pure-ftpd:
(pgo@wc-142.r-195-85-157.essentkabel.com) [INFO] Logout.
----
I tried to recover this cw.txt, but i failed here.. made an image with
dd and tried to find anything unusual, but no.. i think it's just to
check if he could write, that could explain the name "cw.txt" (check
writable?).
----
Oct 3 15:51:41 www pure-ftpd: (?@host43-91.pool8252.interbusiness.it)
[WARNING] Authentication failed for user [pgo]
Oct 3 15:52:04 www pure-ftpd: (?@host43-91.pool8252.interbusiness.it)
[INFO] pgo is now logged in
Oct 3 15:52:17 www pure-ftpd:
(pgo@host43-91.pool8252.interbusiness.it) [INFO] Logout.
----
The above tells me this is not some automated program, cause it wouldn't
fail typing the right password..
----
Oct 3 15:52:28 www pure-ftpd: (?@host43-91.pool8252.interbusiness.it)
[INFO] pgo is now logged in
Oct 3 15:52:58 www pure-ftpd:
(pgo@host43-91.pool8252.interbusiness.it) [INFO] Logout.
Oct 3 15:53:09 www pure-ftpd: (?@host43-91.pool8252.interbusiness.it)
[INFO] pgo is now logged in
Oct 3 15:53:11 www pure-ftpd:
(pgo@host43-91.pool8252.interbusiness.it) [INFO] Logout.
Oct 3 15:53:24 www pure-ftpd: (?@host43-91.pool8252.interbusiness.it)
[INFO] pgo is now logged in
Oct 3 15:53:27 www pure-ftpd:
(pgo@host43-91.pool8252.interbusiness.it) [INFO] Logout.
Oct 3 15:53:38 www pure-ftpd: (?@host43-91.pool8252.interbusiness.it)
[INFO] pgo is now logged in
Oct 3 15:55:29 www pure-ftpd:
(pgo@host43-91.pool8252.interbusiness.it) [INFO] Logout.
----
The above ip continues logging in and out...
----
Oct 3 16:23:26 www pure-ftpd: (?@a81-84-79-26.netcabo.pt) [INFO] pgo is
now logged in Oct 3 16:24:50 www pure-ftpd:
(pgo@a81-84-79-26.netcabo.pt) [INFO] Logout. Oct 3 16:44:09 www
pure-ftpd: (?@a81-84-79-26.netcabo.pt) [INFO] pgo is now logged in Oct
3 16:44:42 www pure-ftpd: (pgo@a81-84-79-26.netcabo.pt) [NOTICE]
/home/users/pgo/public_html//phpBB-2.0.10.tar.bz2 downloaded (453378
bytes, 22.65KB/sec) Oct 3 16:45:09 www pure-ftpd:
(pgo@a81-84-79-26.netcabo.pt) [INFO] Can't change directory to .tmp: No
such file or directory Oct 3 16:45:12 www pure-ftpd:
(pgo@a81-84-79-26.netcabo.pt) [INFO] Can't change directory to .tmp: No
such file or directory Oct 3 16:45:16 www pure-ftpd:
(pgo@a81-84-79-26.netcabo.pt) [INFO] Can't change directory to 15:28: No
such file or directoryOct 3 16:45:19 www pure-ftpd:
(pgo@a81-84-79-26.netcabo.pt) [INFO] Can't change directory to 15:28: No
such file or directory Oct 3 16:46:45 www pure-ftpd:
(pgo@a81-84-79-26.netcabo.pt) [INFO] Logout.
----
The above i think is really strange.. could be some newbie having
trouble controlling an open proxy ofcourse... Btw.. the directories "
.tmp" and " " were created before... nothing in there. What is also
strange is that ".tmp" you would use to hide it or something, why create
" .tmp"? Probably to make it ""hard"" to remove or something.. strange.
----
Oct 3 16:53:26 www pure-ftpd: (?@SHASTA081209.ig.com.br) [INFO] pgo is
now logged in Oct 3 16:56:23 www pure-ftpd:
(pgo@SHASTA081209.ig.com.br) [INFO] Logout. Oct 3 16:56:25 www
pure-ftpd: (?@SHASTA081209.ig.com.br) [INFO] pgo is now logged in Oct 3
16:56:26 www pure-ftpd: (pgo@SHASTA081209.ig.com.br) [INFO] Logout. Oct
3 16:57:52 www pure-ftpd: (?@SHASTA081209.ig.com.br) [INFO] pgo is now
logged in Oct 3 16:57:52 www pure-ftpd: (pgo@SHASTA081209.ig.com.br)
[INFO] Logout. Oct 3 17:05:36 www pure-ftpd: (?@161.139.66.1) [INFO]
pgo is now logged in Oct 3 17:22:15 www pure-ftpd: (pgo@161.139.66.1)
[INFO] Logout. Oct 3 17:42:52 www pure-ftpd:
(?@pD9FAD6AD.dip.t-dialin.net) [INFO] pgo is now logged in Oct 3
17:45:55 www pure-ftpd: (pgo@pD9FAD6AD.dip.t-dialin.net) [INFO] Logout.
Oct 3 17:59:19 www pure-ftpd: (?@pD9FAD6AD.dip.t-dialin.net) [INFO] pgo
is now logged in Oct 3 17:59:28 www pure-ftpd:
(pgo@pD9FAD6AD.dip.t-dialin.net) [INFO] Can't change directory to 15:28:
No such file or directory Oct 3 17:59:28 www pure-ftpd:
(pgo@pD9FAD6AD.dip.t-dialin.net) [INFO] Can't change directory to 15:28:
No such file or directory Oct 3 17:59:28 www pure-ftpd:
(pgo@pD9FAD6AD.dip.t-dialin.net) [INFO] Can't change directory to 15:28:
No such file or directory Oct 3 17:59:29 www pure-ftpd:
(pgo@pD9FAD6AD.dip.t-dialin.net) [INFO] Can't change directory to 15:28:
No such file or directory Oct 3 17:59:29 www pure-ftpd:
(pgo@pD9FAD6AD.dip.t-dialin.net) [INFO] Can't change directory to
/15:28: No such file or directory Oct 3 17:59:30 www pure-ftpd:
(pgo@pD9FAD6AD.dip.t-dialin.net) [INFO] Can't change directory to
/15:28: No such file or directory Oct 3 17:59:39 www pure-ftpd:
(pgo@pD9FAD6AD.dip.t-dialin.net) [INFO] Logout.
----
Again strange behavior.. probably typo's aswell
----
Oct 3 18:09:34 www pure-ftpd: (?@83.100.132.94) [INFO] pgo is now
logged in Oct 3 18:10:08 www pure-ftpd: (pgo@83.100.132.94) [INFO]
Logout. Oct 3 18:18:41 www pure-ftpd:
(?@ti400720a080-3071.bb.online.no)
[INFO] pgo is now logged in
Oct 3 18:21:02 www pure-ftpd: (pgo@ti400720a080-3071.bb.online.no)
[INFO] Logout.
Oct 3 18:31:11 www pure-ftpd: (?@tony04-58-98.inter.net.il) [INFO] pgo
is now logged in Oct 3 18:31:26 www pure-ftpd:
(pgo@tony04-58-98.inter.net.il) [NOTICE] Deleted phpBB-2.0.10.tar.bz2
----
How rude, deleting my board package! Wasn't used anymore anyway so.. It
continues...
----
Oct 3 18:31:29 www pure-ftpd: (pgo@tony04-58-98.inter.net.il) [INFO]
Can't change directory to .tmp: No such file or directory Oct 3
18:31:42 www pure-ftpd: (pgo@tony04-58-98.inter.net.il) [INFO] Transfer
aborted Oct 3 18:33:11 www pure-ftpd: (pgo@tony04-58-98.inter.net.il)
[INFO] Timeout (no new data for 900 seconds) Oct 3 18:33:15 www
pure-ftpd: (?@tony04-58-98.inter.net.il) [INFO] pgo is now logged in Oct
3 18:33:47 www pure-ftpd: (pgo@tony04-58-98.inter.net.il) [INFO] Logout.
----
----
Oct 3 18:35:09 www pure-ftpd: (?@rr3-c-31-1.lnet.lut.fi) [INFO] pgo is
now logged in Oct 3 18:35:16 www pure-ftpd:
(pgo@rr3-c-31-1.lnet.lut.fi) [INFO] Can't change directory to 15:28: No
such file or directory Oct 3 18:35:31 www pure-ftpd:
(?@UBR-cpe-1.nat-pool.nsad.sbb.co.yu)
[INFO] pgo is now logged in
Oct 3 18:35:44 www pure-ftpd: (pgo@UBR-cpe-1.nat-pool.nsad.sbb.co.yu)
[INFO] Can't change directory to .tmp: No such file ordirectory Oct 3
18:35:46 www pure-ftpd: (pgo@UBR-cpe-1.nat-pool.nsad.sbb.co.yu)
[INFO] Can't change directory to 15:28 : No such file or directory
Oct 3 18:35:49 www pure-ftpd: (pgo@rr3-c-31-1.lnet.lut.fi) [INFO]
Logout.
----
Well, I'll skip all those ".tmp" messages.. all these fools seem to miss
that it should be " .tmp". Maybe i should explain that this " .tmp" was
also created by these account crackers.
----
Oct 3 23:48:56 www pure-ftpd: (?@modem-1327.buffalo.dialup.pol.co.uk)
[WARNING] Authentication failed for user [pgo]
Oct 3 23:49:00 www pure-ftpd: (?@modem-1327.buffalo.dialup.pol.co.uk)
[WARNING] Authentication failed for user [pgo]
Oct 3 23:49:41 www pure-ftpd: (?@modem-1327.buffalo.dialup.pol.co.uk)
[WARNING] Authentication failed for user [pgo]
Oct 3 23:49:45 www pure-ftpd: (?@modem-1327.buffalo.dialup.pol.co.uk)
[WARNING] Authentication failed for user [pgo]
Oct 3 23:49:49 www pure-ftpd: (?@modem-1327.buffalo.dialup.pol.co.uk)
[WARNING] Authentication failed for user [pgo]
Oct 3 23:49:52 www pure-ftpd: (?@modem-1327.buffalo.dialup.pol.co.uk)
[WARNING] Authentication failed for user [pgo]
Oct 3 23:49:56 www pure-ftpd: (?@modem-1327.buffalo.dialup.pol.co.uk)
[WARNING] Authentication failed for user [pgo]
Oct 3 23:50:00 www pure-ftpd: (?@modem-1327.buffalo.dialup.pol.co.uk)
[WARNING] Authentication failed for user [pgo]
Oct 3 23:55:54 www pure-ftpd:
(?@host81-157-252-251.range81-157.btcentralplus.com) [INFO] pgo is now
logged in Oct 3 23:55:56 www pure-ftpd:
(pgo@host81-157-252-251.range81-157.btcentralplus.com) [INFO] Can't
change directory to .tmp: No such file or directory Oct 3 23:56:16 www
pure-ftpd:
(pgo@host81-157-252-251.range81-157.btcentralplus.com) [INFO] Logout.
----
Well, told yah; hard to type password..
----
Oct 4 00:58:06 www pure-ftpd: (?@213-132-213-18.adsl.nlhosting.nl)
[INFO] pgo is now logged in
Oct 4 00:58:14 www pure-ftpd: (pgo@213-132-213-18.adsl.nlhosting.nl)
[INFO] Can't change directory to 15:28: No such file or directory Oct 4
00:58:53 www pure-ftpd: (pgo@213-132-213-18.adsl.nlhosting.nl)
[INFO] Logout.
----
The above doesn't look like an open proxy to me.. strange.
----
Oct 4 01:20:02 www pure-ftpd: (?@pD9EB995F.dip0.t-ipconnect.de) [INFO]
pgo is now logged in Oct 4 01:20:03 www pure-ftpd:
(pgo@pD9EB995F.dip0.t-ipconnect.de)
[INFO] Can't change directory to / 21: No such file or directory Oct 4
01:20:06 www pure-ftpd: (pgo@pD9EB995F.dip0.t-ipconnect.de)
[INFO] Can't change directory to .tmp: No such file or directory
----
The above goes on trying to fetch '.tmp' .. fails. But this time you see
directory "/ 21" weird..
----
Oct 4 14:35:17 www pure-ftpd: (?@p50812301.dip0.t-ipconnect.de) [INFO]
pgo is now logged in Oct 4 14:35:22 www pure-ftpd:
(pgo@p50812301.dip0.t-ipconnect.de)
[INFO] Can't change directory to ./.tmp. / /: No such file or directory
Oct 4 14:36:44 www pure-ftpd: (pgo@p50812301.dip0.t-ipconnect.de)
[INFO] Logout.
----
So, i think it's very strange. I don't understand how they get the
password of this account which really is hard (8 chars, randum letters
and numbers). They could have sniffed it ofcourse but why login from
somany ip addresses and do absolutely nothing? I still have this account
working, it's about 2 weeks ago when i found out.. i want to find out
the purpose and cause and who did this. Any ideas?
--
Rob klein Gunnewiek
