Snort Cookbook

Description:

If you are a network administrator, you're under a lot of pressure to ensure that mission-critical systems are completely safe from malicious code, buffer overflows, stealth port scans, SMB probes, OS fingerprinting attempts, CGI attacks, and other network intruders. Designing a reliable way to detect intruders before they get in is an essential--but often overwhelming--challenge. Snort, the defacto open source standard of intrusion detection tools, is capable of performing real-time traffic analysis and packet logging on IP network. It can perform protocol analysis, content searching, and matching. Snort can save countless headaches; the new Snort Cookbook will save countless hours of sifting through dubious online advice or wordy tutorials in order to leverage the full power of SNORT.

Each recipe in the popular and practical problem-solution-discussion O'Reilly cookbook format contains a clear and thorough description of the problem, a concise but complete discussion of a solution, and real-world examples that illustrate that solution. The Snort Cookbook covers important issues that sys admins and security pros will us everyday, such as:

• installation
  
• optimization
  
• logging
  
• alerting
  
• rules and signatures
  
• detecting viruses
  
• countermeasures
  
• detecting common attacks
  
• administration
  
• honeypots
  
• log analysis

But the Snort Cookbook offers far more than quick cut-and-paste solutions to frustrating security issues. Those who learn best in the trenches--and don't have the hours to spare to pore over tutorials or troll online for best-practice snippets of advice--will find that the solutions offered in this ultimate Snort sourcebook not only solve immediate problems quickly, but also showcase the best tips and tricks they need to master be security gurus--and still have a life. 

 

Table of Contents:

Preface

1. Installation and Optimization

      1.1 Installing Snort from Source on Unix  

      1.2 Installing Snort Binaries on Linux  

      1.3 Installing Snort on Solaris  

      1.4 Installing Snort on Windows  

      1.5 Uninstalling Snort from Windows  

      1.6 Installing Snort on Mac OS X  

      1.7 Uninstalling Snort from Linux  

      1.8 Upgrading Snort on Linux  

      1.9 Monitoring Multiple Network Interfaces  

      1.10 Invisibly Tapping a Hub  

      1.11 Invisibly Sniffing Between Two Network Points  

      1.12 Invisibly Sniffing 100 MB Ethernet  

      1.13 Sniffing Gigabit Ethernet  

      1.14 Tapping a Wireless Network  

      1.15 Positioning Your IDS Sensors  

      1.16 Capturing and Viewing Packets  

      1.17 Logging Packets That Snort Captures  

      1.18 Running Snort to Detect Intrusions  

      1.19 Reading a Saved Capture File  

      1.20 Running Snort as a Linux Daemon  

      1.21 Running Snort as a Windows Service  

      1.22 Capturing Without Putting the Interface into Promiscuous Mode  

      1.23 Reloading Snort Settings  

      1.24 Debugging Snort Rules  

      1.25 Building a Distributed IDS (Plain Text)  

      1.26 Building a Distributed IDS (Encrypted)  

2. Logging, Alerts, and Output Plug-ins

      2.1 Logging to a File Quickly  

      2.2 Logging Only Alerts  

      2.3 Logging to a CSV File  

      2.4 Logging to a Specific File  

      2.5 Logging to Multiple Locations  

      2.6 Logging in Binary  

      2.7 Viewing Traffic While Logging  

      2.8 Logging Application Data  

      2.9 Logging to the Windows Event Viewer  

      2.10 Logging Alerts to a Database  

      2.11 Installing and Configuring MySQL  

      2.12 Configuring MySQL for Snort  

      2.13 Using PostgreSQL with Snort and ACID  

      2.14 Logging in PCAP Format (TCPDump)  

      2.15 Logging to Email  

      2.16 Logging to a Pager or Cell Phone  

      2.17 Optimizing Logging  

      2.18 Reading Unified Logged Data  

      2.19 Generating Real-Time Alerts  

      2.20 Ignoring Some Alerts  

      2.21 Logging to System Logfiles  

      2.22 Fast Logging  

      2.23 Logging to a Unix Socket  

      2.24 Not Logging  

      2.25 Prioritizing Alerts  

      2.26 Capturing Traffic from a Specific TCP Session  

      2.27 Killing a Specific Session  

3. Rules and Signatures

      3.1 How to Build Rules  

      3.2 Keeping the Rules Up to Date  

      3.3 Basic Rules You Shouldn't Leave Home Without  

      3.4 Dynamic Rules  

      3.5 Detecting Binary Content  

      3.6 Detecting Malware  

      3.7 Detecting Viruses  

      3.8 Detecting IM  

      3.9 Detecting P2P  

      3.10 Detecting IDS Evasion  

      3.11 Countermeasures from Rules  

      3.12 Testing Rules  

      3.13 Optimizing Rules  

      3.14 Blocking Attacks in Real Time  

      3.15 Suppressing Rules  

      3.16 Thresholding Alerts  

      3.17 Excluding from Logging  

      3.18 Carrying Out Statistical Analysis  

4. Preprocessing: An Introduction

      4.1 Detecting Stateless Attacks and Stream Reassembly  

      4.2 Detecting Fragmentation Attacks and Fragment Reassemblywith Frag2  

      4.3 Detecting and Normalizing HTTP Traffic  

      4.4 Decoding Application Traffic  

      4.5 Detecting Port Scans and Talkative Hosts  

      4.6 Getting Performance Metrics  

      4.7 Experimental Preprocessors  

      4.8 Writing Your Own Preprocessor  

5. Administrative Tools

      5.1 Managing Snort Sensors  

      5.2 Installing and Configuring IDScenter  

      5.3 Installing and Configuring SnortCenter  

      5.4 Installing and Configuring Snortsnarf  

      5.5 Running Snortsnarf Automatically  

      5.6 Installing and Configuring ACID  

      5.7 Securing ACID  

      5.8 Installing and Configuring Swatch  

      5.9 Installing and Configuring Barnyard  

      5.10 Administering Snort with IDS Policy Manager  

      5.11 Integrating Snort with Webmin  

      5.12 Administering Snort with HenWen  

      5.13 Newbies Playing with Snort Using EagleX  

6. Log Analysis

      6.1 Generating Statistical Output from Snort Logs  

      6.2 Generating Statistical Output from Snort Databases  

      6.3 Performing Real-Time Data Analysis  

      6.4 Generating Text-Based Log Analysis  

      6.5 Creating HTML Log Analysis Output  

      6.6 Tools for Testing Signatures  

      6.7 Analyzing and Graphing Logs  

      6.8 Analyzing Sniffed (Pcap) Traffic  

      6.9 Writing Output Plug-ins  

7. Miscellaneous Other Uses

      7.1 Monitoring Network Performance  

      7.2 Logging Application Traffic  

      7.3 Recognizing HTTP Traffic on Unusual Ports  

      7.4 Creating a Reactive IDS  

      7.5 Monitoring a Network Using Policy-Based IDS  

      7.6 Port Knocking  

      7.7 Obfuscating IP Addresses  

      7.8 Passive OS Fingerprinting  

      7.9 Working with Honeypots and Honeynets  

      7.10 Performing Forensics Using Snort  

      7.11 Snort and Investigations  

      7.12 Snort as Legal Evidence in the U.S.  

      7.13 Snort as Evidence in the U.K.  

      7.14 Snort as a Virus Detection Tool  

      7.15 Staying Legal  

Index