Automating Discovery of Vulnerabilities in Network Protocols Through Fuzz Testing

Abstract

The exploitation of vulnerabilities in applications, network protocols or firmware by hackers and state agencies can have serious consequences for organizations and countries as it results in tremendous loss of money and stealing of criti cal information. Network protocols are generally implemented with the help of a code that is responsible for transmission and reception of messages in accordance with that protocol. This code is generally embedded within the firmware of the device. The security of a network protocol not only depends on the security features provided by the protocol its self but also on the implementation. Flawed implementation can lead to serious security conse quences. Fuzzing is an automated software quality assurance and security testing technique typically famous for finding zero days, buffer overflow and memory corruption vulnerabilities. In this research Fuzzing is used as a secu rity testing technique to discover vulnerabilities in network protocols. SNMP protocol implementation in Cisco routers is used as a test case scenario. The research has proposed a generalized fuzzing methodology which can be used for all network protocols that work in client-server model. The methodol ogy proved its effectiveness by discovering various known memory corruption vulnerabilities and an unknown DOS vulnerability.