Dealing with HTTP w00tw00t attacks

Solution 1:

From your error log they are sending a HTTP/1.1 request without the Host: portion of the request. From what I read, Apache replies with a 400 (bad request) error to this request, before handing over to mod_security. So, it doesn't look like your rules will be processed. (Apache dealing with it before requiring to hand over to mod_security)

Try yourself:

telnet hostname 80
GET /blahblahblah.html HTTP/1.1  (enter)
(enter)

You should get the 400 error and see the same error in your logs. This is a bad request and apache is giving the correct answer.

Proper request should look like:

GET /blahblahblah.html HTTP/1.1
Host: blah.com

A work around for this issue could be to patch mod_uniqueid, to generate a unique ID even for a failed request, in order that apache passes the request on to its request handlers. The following URL is a discussion about this work around, and includes a patch for mod_uniqueid you could use: http://marc.info/?l=mod-security-users&m=123300133603876&w=2

Couldn't find any other solutions for it and wonder if a solution is actually required.

Solution 2:

Filtering IPs is not a good idea, imho. Why don't try filtering the string you know?

I mean:

iptables -I INPUT -p tcp --dport 80 -m string --to 60 --algo bm --string 'GET /w00tw00t' -j DROP

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Solution 3:

Iv also started seeing these types of messages in my log files. One way to prevent these types of attacks is to setup fail2ban( http://www.fail2ban.org/ ) and setup specific filters to black list these ip address in your iptables rules.

Heres a example of a filter that would block the ip address associated with making those messages

[Tue Aug 16 02:35:23 2011] [error] [client ] File does not exist: /var/www/skraps/w00tw00t.at.blackhats.romanian.anti-sec:) === apache w00t w00t messages jail - regex and filter === Jail

 [apache-wootwoot]
 enabled  = true
 filter   = apache-wootwoot
 action   = iptables[name=HTTP, port="80,443", protocol=tcp]
 logpath  = /var/log/apache2/error.log
 maxretry = 1
 bantime  = 864000
 findtime = 3600

Filter

 # Fail2Ban configuration file
 #
 # Author: Jackie Craig Sparks
 #
 # $Revision: 728 $
 #
 [Definition]
 #Woot woot messages
 failregex = ^\[\w{1,3} \w{1,3} \d{1,2} \d{1,2}:\d{1,2}:\d{1,2} \d{1,4}] \[error] \[client 195.140.144.30] File does not exist: \/.{1,20}\/(w00tw00t|wootwoot|WootWoot|WooTWooT).{1,250}
 ignoreregex =

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Solution 4:

w00tw00t.at.blackhats.romanian.anti-sec is a hacking attempt and uses spoof IP's so lookups such as VisualRoute will report China,Poland,Denmark etc according to the IP being seconded at that time. So setting up a Deny IP or resolvable Host Name is well nigh impossible as it will change within an hour.

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Solution 5:

I personally wrote a Python script to auto-add IPtables rules.

Here's a slightly abbreviated version without logging and other junk:

#!/usr/bin/python
from subprocess import *
import re
import shlex
import sys

def find_dscan():
        p1 = Popen(['tail', '-n', '5000', '/usr/local/apache/logs/error_log'], stdout=PIPE)
        p2 = Popen(['grep', 'w00t'], stdin=p1.stdout, stdout=PIPE)

        output = p2.communicate()[0].split('\n')

        ip_list = []

        for i in output:
                result = re.findall(r"\b(?:(?:25[0-5]|2[0-4][0-9]|[01]?[0-9][0-9]?)\.){3}(?:25[0-5]|2[0-4][0-9]|[01]?[0-9][0-9]?)\b", i)
                if len(result):
                        ip_list.append(result[0])

        return set(ip_list)

for ip in find_dscan():
        input = "iptables -A INPUT -s " + ip + " -j DROP"
        output = "iptables -A OUTPUT -d " + ip + " -j DROP"
        Popen(shlex.split(input))
        Popen(shlex.split(output))

sys.exit(0)