Security Basics: Re: Attacking a machine on network.

["Jason Ross" <algorythm () gmail com>]

On 5/29/07, John Pluffum <john.pluffum () gmail com> wrote:
> Dear list,
>
> Is it possible at all that there are avenue of possible attack if not
> even one port is listed as listening on a network ?
<snip>

> If someone doesn't run a service, this obviously leads me to the
> assumption that that particular machine could never be cracked ? Is this
> a right assumption ?
While services are generally the first way to attempt an attack, the
OS itself is potentially vulnerable as well, as is any software
installed on the host. This isn't even going into some of the more
esoteric exploits that are being developed (exploiting firmware for
example).

So, not running services on a host absolutely makes that nut tougher
to crack, but it doesn't guarantee someone won't use a better
nutcracker ;-)


> Also, most of the attack on server seems to be some kind of buffer
> overflow attack, crafted packets, and DOS.
If there are no services running on the host, I'm unsure how this is a
server ...


> How do attackers then basically able to mount an attack on a
> machine which doesn't listen to any network interface ?
Specially crafted emails containing images which execute a buffer
overflow comes to mind as one way, though I'm sure there's a number of
others.

--
Jason