@(#) Hidden sniffer howto 06 MAR 2000 Rob Thomas robt@cymru.com HOWTO create a hidden sniffer with Solaris While experimenting with some code, I came up with this trick for creating an unseen Solaris sniffer. It is possible, when using snoop(1M), to sniff packets through an unplumb'd interface. The obvious benefit is that the interface can not be detected. Thus, the sniffer remains impervious to detection and attack. I was not able to use snoop(1M) on an unplumb'd interface until the interface had been configured. I suspect that this action loads the necessary module and configures the STREAM. Unfortunately, I have only been able to use snoop(1M) with an unplumb'd interface. The snort(8) tool does not seem to work. I was able to get tcpdump to work with this trick. Here are the steps to run the "unseen" sniffer: ifconfig plumb ifconfig netmask up ifconfig unplumb snoop -d Where: = an interface. I used le0 for the test. = an IP address, any IP address. I used 10.10.10.1 for the test. = a netmask. I used /30 for the test. This sniffer then sits silently, gathering all traffic that is presented on the wire. Interestingly enough, the interface does not respond to any traffic. Even broadcasts -- of every type, e.g. all 1's, network, subnet -- were ignored. Nothing I tried would elicit a response from this unplumb'd interface. Thus, it would appear that struct ifnet is cleared by the unplumb option to ifconfig(1M). This sniffer has already captured quite a bit of...interesting... traffic. ;-) Other HOWTOs - http://www.cymru.com/~robt/Docs/Howto Other Articles - http://www.cymru.com/~robt/Docs/Articles Rob Thomas, robt@cymru.com http://www.cymru.com/~robt