Re: Spanning Tree Switch Exploits? Fact or Fiction?

["Sean Convery" <sean () cisco com>]

After some further thought on this, it seems like
there are 3 attack scenarios which make sense:

1) BPDU DoS attack:

Send BPDUs in order to cause the switch to
recalculate spanning tree.  This would be
relatively easy to execute and would create a DoS
condition on the switched network for a period of
time.

2) This next attack would require the following
topology (sure hope the ASCII art works):

F=Forward
B=Block
R=STP Root Bridge

           R  F        F
        SWITCH----------SWITCH
           \ F            / F
            \            /
           \          /
            \        /
             \      /
             F\    X B
               \  /
             ATTACKER

If the attacker sends out BPDU messages to become
root, the topology would change to this:

            F        B
        SWITCH-------X--SWITCH
           \ F                / F
            \            /
           \          /
            \        /
             \      /
             F\    / F
               \  /
             ATTACKER
                 R

This would cause all traffic generally traveling
between the two switches, to now travel via the
attacker.  Note that this attack isn't
particularly useful to an attacker since it
requires a simultaneous connection to two
different switches.  Once executed the attacker
would be able to launch any variety of
man-in-the-middle or DoS attacks.

3) A variant on number two which is a bit more
realistic is this next attack.
  The topology looks like this:

GE=Gigabit Ethernet Link
FE=Fast Ethernet Link

           R  F        F
        SWITCH----------SWITCH
           \ F   GE       / F
            \            /
           \FE      FE/
            \        /
             \      /
             F\    X B
               \  /
              SWITCH
                 |
                 |
             ATTACKER

Again, the attacker sends BPDU messages to become
root.  This creates an STP topology change:

            F        B
        SWITCH-------X--SWITCH
           \ F   GE       / F
            \            /
           \FE      FE/
            \        /
             \      /
             F\    / F
               \  /
              SWITCH
                 |
                 |
             ATTACKER
                 R

The impact then becomes a very painful DoS as now
the GE link is no longer in use in favor of the
two FE links.  This attack could then potentially
be combined with a CAM table flooding attack to
cause backbone traffic to overflow on the
attackers port.

Can anyone think of other scenarios?

Thanks,

Sean