Inter-protocol exploitation

Inter-protocol exploitation is a security vulnerability in the fundamentals of the communication protocols used in the Internet. It was discovered in 2007 and publicly announced in research of the same year. Internet protocol implementations allow for the possibility of encapsulating exploit code to compromise a remote program which uses a different protocol. Inter-protocol exploitation is where one protocol attacks a service running a different protocol. This is a legacy problem because the specifications of the protocols did not take into consideration an attack of this type.

Technical Details

The two protocols involved in the vulnerability are the carrier and target. The carrier encapsulates the exploit code and the target protocol is used for communication by the intended victim service. Inter-protocol exploitation will be successful if the carrier protocol can encapsulate the exploit code which can take advantage of a target service. Also, there may be other preconditions depending on the complexity of the vulnerability.

Current Implications

One of the major issues security professionals are concerned about is the potential for this attack vector to reach through firewalls and DMZs. Inter-protocol exploits can be transmitted over HTTP and launched from web browsers on an internal subnet. An important point is the web browser is not exploited though any conventional means.

External

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/06/27/wade_alcorn_metasploit_interview/

http://www.ngssoftware.com/research/papers/InterProtocolExploitation.pdf