Honeyd remote detection vulnerability via a probe packet — GLSA 200401-02

Identification of Honeyd installations allows an adversary to launch attacks specifically against Honeyd. No remote root exploit is currently known.

Affected packages

net-analyzer/honeyd on all architectures
Affected versions < 0.8
Unaffected versions >= 0.8

Background

Honeyd is a virtual honeypot daemon that can simulate virtual hosts on unallocated IP addresses.

Description

A bug in handling NMAP fingerprints caused Honeyd to reply to TCP packets with both the SYN and RST flags set. Watching for replies, it is possible to detect IP addresses simulated by Honeyd.

Impact

Although there are no public exploits known for Honeyd, the detection of Honeyd IP addresses may in some cases be undesirable.

Workaround

Honeyd 0.8 has been released along with an advisory to address this issue. In addition, Honeyd 0.8 drops privileges if permitted by the configuration file and contains command line flags to force dropping of privileges.

Resolution

All users are recommended to update to honeyd version 0.8:

 $> emerge sync
 $> emerge -pv ">=net-analyzer/honeyd-0.8"
 $> emerge ">=net-analyzer/honeyd-0.8"

References

Release date
January 21, 2004

Latest revision
January 21, 2004: 01

Severity
low

Exploitable
remote

Bugzilla entries