Upper Layer Protocols; Guidelines For Enhancing Security With Your Firewall; Security In General - ZyXEL Communications Network Device P-2602 User Manual

P-2602H(W)(L)-DxA Series User's Guide
A similar situation exists for ICMP, except that the ZyXEL Device is even more restrictive.
Specifically, only outgoing echoes will allow incoming echo replies, outgoing address mask
requests will allow incoming address mask replies, and outgoing timestamp requests will
allow incoming timestamp replies. No other ICMP packets are allowed in through the firewall,
simply because they are too dangerous and contain too little tracking information. For
instance, ICMP redirect packets are never allowed in, since they could be used to reroute
traffic through attacking machines.

13.5.5 Upper Layer Protocols

Some higher layer protocols (such as FTP and RealAudio) utilize multiple network
connections simultaneously. In general terms, they usually have a "control connection" which
is used for sending commands between endpoints, and then "data connections" which are used
for transmitting bulk information.
Consider the FTP protocol. A user on the LAN opens a control connection to a server on the
Internet and requests a file. At this point, the remote server will open a data connection from
the Internet. For FTP to work properly, this connection must be allowed to pass through even
though a connection from the Internet would normally be rejected.
In order to achieve this, the ZyXEL Device inspects the application-level FTP data.
Specifically, it searches for outgoing "PORT" commands, and when it sees these, it adds a
cache entry for the anticipated data connection. This can be done safely, since the PORT
command contains address and port information, which can be used to uniquely identify the
connection.
Any protocol that operates in this way must be supported on a case-by-case basis. You can use
the web configurator's Custom Ports feature to do this.

13.6 Guidelines for Enhancing Security with Your Firewall

• Change the default password.
• Limit who can telnet into your router.
• Don't enable any local service (such as SNMP or NTP) that you don't use. Any enabled
service could present a potential security risk. A determined hacker might be able to find
creative ways to misuse the enabled services to access the firewall or the network.
• For local services that are enabled, protect against misuse. Protect by configuring the
services to communicate only with specific peers, and protect by configuring rules to
block packets for the services at specific interfaces.
• Protect against IP spoofing by making sure the firewall is active.
• Keep the firewall in a secured (locked) room.

13.6.1 Security In General

You can never be too careful! Factors outside your firewall, filtering or NAT can cause
security breaches. Below are some generalizations about what you can do to minimize them.
190 Chapter 13 Firewalls