[ale] Is Promiscuous Sniffing just not so much Fun anymore? (mostly on-topic)

[Beddingfield, Allen]

You are more likely to get interesting "stuff" by sniffing wireless connections, I would think...  You are correct that switched networks remove most of the fun...errr...security problems.

--
Allen Beddingfield
Systems Engineer
The University of Alabama
________________________________
From: ale-bounces at ale.org [ale-bounces at ale.org] on behalf of Neal Rhodes [neal at mnopltd.com]
Sent: Tuesday, December 10, 2013 1:08 PM
To: Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts
Subject: [ale] Is Promiscuous Sniffing just not so much Fun anymore? (mostly on-topic)

So, picture two servers which talk to each other within a corporate LAN/WAN in a data center, and worker bees in an office location elsewhere in the same city, who only have hard-wired LAN access, and assume they have IP connectivity to the data center.

And picture that these two servers have an unsecured http protocol they talk over.

And picture a worker bee with too much time on their hands and the intent to hijack this.

If said worker bee managed to get WireShark or similar installed on their workstation,  they could sniff whatever that hard Cat5 cable can see.    Which, assuming it is connected to a switch, not an old-fashioned hub, is pretty much zilch.   Basically their own traffic.

They can't see most traffic to/from the guy in the next cubicle to the servers, because the switch doesn't normally let them see it.   For performance reasons, it isolates each LAN port.    They can't see any of the server-server packets, because the two routers in between behave like switches, not hubs, and don't route local server-server traffic.

So, assuming that Wifi is not available, it seems like the LAN sniffer attack vector based on seeing what is happening is pretty much moot.    That is not to say that actively probing isn't rewarding.

Let's take it one step farther: presume that it is trivial for these two servers to switch from talking http:80 to each other and start talking https:443 to each other.    From the perspective above, this is a negligible practical improvement.    It only gets interesting if we imagine someone able to get onto the local LAN in the data center.  But even then, presuming that is also a switch, they ain't gonna see spit.

Let's take it one step farther: assume that they could in fact compromise the data center switch, and capture a pile of the https traffic between servers.   Would we logically assume that given today's technology that they could manage to decrypt it with enough CPU and time?

Thoughts?

Neal Rhodes
MNOP Ltd