full-disclosure - Counter-Attacking hackers? Is this really a good idea?

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Message-ID: <404C79C4.9070502@rtij.nl>
From: m at rtij.nl (Martijn Lievaart)
Subject: Counter-Attacking hackers? Is this really a
 good idea?

technocrat@...h.ai wrote:

>This company...
>
>http://www.symbiot.com/
>
>Is claiming to have the "first IT security solution that can both repel
>hostile attacks on enterprise networks and accurately identify the malicious
>attackers in order to plan and execute appropriate countermeasures ?
>effectively fighting fire with fire."
>
>Are these guys nuts? I'm not sure if this is a good idea or not. I don't
>want to promote them, but on the other hand this seems to be a topic
>that should be discussed by information security professionals. If the
>community as a whole thinks this is a good idea, then there should be
>some type of standard agreed to by the masses of administrators that
>will have to put up with the results of such a system.
>
>Again, just thought this should be openly discussed and that we should
>all be aware of it.
>
>I even thought about posting thier white papers to my personal site in
>an effort to stick to the 'discussion not promotion' agenda I have, but
>then I don't want to get 'Couter-Attacked' now do I ;)
>
>  
>

Yup, they are nuts. At least here in .nl this will negate any courtcase 
you might have had and open yourself up to lots of claims from others. 
Think about that, you get attacked and subsequently sued.

Besides, there is always the risk of false positives. You're going to be 
responsible for such a system? Maybe if you're the NSA, but otherwise I 
think not.

Don't fight fire with fire. But a good IDS system like they describe 
with passive countermeasures may make sense from time to time. I use one 
myself and it works perfectly after the initial tuning. I recently saw a 
very good one implemented where the attacker got nullrouted if he 
triggered certain rules above a certain threshold. Very effective, yet a 
few simple scripts suffice. True, this does nothing against most DOS 
attacks[0], but then the system from symbiot will not either.

Greetz,
M4
[0] This looks like it could be very effective against syn type of 
attacks, but the problem of false positives versus impact will make you 
look at a decent firewall instead.