Xuewei Feng (Tsinghua University), Yuxiang Yang (Tsinghua University), Qi Li (Tsinghua University), Xingxiang Zhan (Zhongguancun Lab), Kun Sun (George Mason University), Ziqiang Wang (Southeast University), Ao Wang (Southeast University), Ganqiu Du (China Software Testing Center), Ke Xu (Tsinghua University)

In this paper, we conduct an empirical study on remote DoS attacks targeting NAT networks (ReDAN, short for Remote DoS Attacks targeting NAT). We show that Internet attackers operating outside local NAT networks possess the capability to remotely identify a NAT device and subsequently terminate TCP connections initiated from the identified NAT device to external servers. Our attack involves two steps. First, we identify NAT devices on the Internet by exploiting inadequacies in the Path MTU Discovery (PMTUD) mechanism within NAT specifications. This deficiency creates a fundamental side channel that allows Internet attackers to distinguish if a public IPv4 address serves a NAT device or a separate IP host, aiding in the identification of target NAT devices. Second, we launch a remote DoS attack to terminate TCP connections on the identified NAT devices. While recent NAT implementations may include protective measures, such as packet legitimacy validation to prevent malicious manipulations on NAT mappings, we discover that these safeguards are not widely adopted in real world. Consequently, attackers can send crafted packets to deceive NAT devices into erroneously removing innocent TCP connection mappings, thereby disrupting the NATed clients to access remote TCP servers. Our experimental results reveal widespread security vulnerabilities in existing NAT devices. After testing 8 types of router firmware and 30 commercial NAT devices from 14 vendors, we identify vulnerabilities in 6 firmware types and 29 NAT devices that allow off-path removal of TCP connection mappings. Moreover, our measurements reveal a stark reality: 166 out of 180 (over 92%) tested real-world NAT networks, comprising 90 4G LTE/5G networks, 60 public Wi-Fi networks, and 30 cloud VPS networks, are susceptible to exploitation. We responsibly disclosed the vulnerabilities to affected vendors and received a significant number of acknowledgments. Finally, we propose our countermeasures against the identified DoS attack.

View More Papers

Revisiting EM-based Estimation for Locally Differentially Private Protocols

Yutong Ye (Institute of software, Chinese Academy of Sciences & Zhongguancun Laboratory, Beijing, PR.China.), Tianhao Wang (University of Virginia), Min Zhang (Institute of Software, Chinese Academy of Sciences), Dengguo Feng (Institute of Software, Chinese Academy of Sciences)

Read More

PropertyGPT: LLM-driven Formal Verification of Smart Contracts through Retrieval-Augmented...

Ye Liu (Singapore Management University), Yue Xue (MetaTrust Labs), Daoyuan Wu (The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology), Yuqiang Sun (Nanyang Technological University), Yi Li (Nanyang Technological University), Miaolei Shi (MetaTrust Labs), Yang Liu (Nanyang Technological University)

Read More

Welcome to Jurassic Park: A Comprehensive Study of Security...

Abdullah AlHamdan (CISPA Helmholtz Center for Information Security), Cristian-Alexandru Staicu (CISPA Helmholtz Center for Information Security)

Read More

Understanding Data Importance in Machine Learning Attacks: Does Valuable...

Rui Wen (CISPA Helmholtz Center for Information Security), Michael Backes (CISPA Helmholtz Center for Information Security), Yang Zhang (CISPA Helmholtz Center for Information Security)

Read More