sigmamediumHunting

Suspicious VSFTPD Error Messages

Detects suspicious VSFTPD error messages that indicate a fatal or suspicious error that could be caused by exploiting attempts

MITRE ATT&CK

T1190

initial-access

Detection Query

keywords:
  - "Connection refused: too many sessions for this address."
  - "Connection refused: tcp_wrappers denial."
  - Bad HTTP verb.
  - port and pasv both active
  - pasv and port both active
  - Transfer done (but failed to open directory).
  - Could not set file modification time.
  - "bug: pid active in ptrace_sandbox_free"
  - PTRACE_SETOPTIONS failure
  - "weird status:"
  - couldn't handle sandbox event
  - syscall * out of bounds
  - "syscall not permitted:"
  - "syscall validate failed:"
  - Input line too long.
  - poor buffer accounting in str_netfd_alloc
  - vsf_sysutil_read_loop
condition: keywords

Author

Florian Roth (Nextron Systems)

Created

2017-07-05

Data Sources

linuxvsftpd

Platforms

linux

References

https://github.com/dagwieers/vsftpd/

Tags

attack.initial-accessattack.t1190

Raw Content

title: Suspicious VSFTPD Error Messages
id: 377f33a1-4b36-4ee1-acee-1dbe4b43cfbe
status: test
description: Detects suspicious VSFTPD error messages that indicate a fatal or suspicious error that could be caused by exploiting attempts
references:
    - https://github.com/dagwieers/vsftpd/
author: Florian Roth (Nextron Systems)
date: 2017-07-05
modified: 2021-11-27
tags:
    - attack.initial-access
    - attack.t1190
logsource:
    product: linux
    service: vsftpd
detection:
    keywords:
        - 'Connection refused: too many sessions for this address.'
        - 'Connection refused: tcp_wrappers denial.'
        - 'Bad HTTP verb.'
        - 'port and pasv both active'
        - 'pasv and port both active'
        - 'Transfer done (but failed to open directory).'
        - 'Could not set file modification time.'
        - 'bug: pid active in ptrace_sandbox_free'
        - 'PTRACE_SETOPTIONS failure'
        - 'weird status:'
        - 'couldn''t handle sandbox event'
        - 'syscall * out of bounds'
        - 'syscall not permitted:'
        - 'syscall validate failed:'
        - 'Input line too long.'
        - 'poor buffer accounting in str_netfd_alloc'
        - 'vsf_sysutil_read_loop'
    condition: keywords
falsepositives:
    - Unknown
level: medium