Firewall Net tests, installation & configuration
FireWall.net - Guide to install and configure a PC FireWall
 
" Lockdown " Tests of Lockdown Firewall -->
 

Tests of Lockdown

 
oTests oOverviewoPrice oResultsoAdvantagesoDisadvantages oImprovementsoSummaryoReferenceso

A - Security effectiveness Tests

Key criteria in choosing a personnal firewall are :

  • Effectiveness of security protection : penetration, Trojans, controlling leaks, denial of service.

  • Effectiveness of intrusion detection: few false positives, alerting of dangerous attacks.

  • User interface: ease of use, instructiveness, simplicity, quality of online help. Does the interface suit the way you use your PC ?

  • Price.

How did we test firewall/intrusion detection effectiveness?

  1. Ping and accessing shares to and from the test host.

  2. A powerful, well known "remote control" Trojan (Netbus Pro v2.1 [2]) was installed on the system on a nonstandard port (to make detection more difficult), the Netbus server started and attempts made to connect from a remote system.

  3. An nmap [1] scan was run, to check that incoming ports were effectively blocked. With another local PC launching nmaps againts the test PC and the following options (nmap -v -sT -P0 -O IP_ADDR).

  4. An nmap [1] scan was run, to check that incoming ports were effectively blocked. With another local PC launching nmaps againts the test PC and the following options (nmap -v -sP -P0 -O IP_ADDR).

  5. A test using Leaktest [4] was done.

  6. We checked the system ressource usage of the firewall during the tests (just in case).

  7. We tried to launch a modified (by us) release of IEXPLORE.EXE (C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\IEXPLORE.EXE ) to check if the firewall detects the problem.

  8. Test (with nmap [1]) to check if the firewall is statefull or filtering only.

NB : These tests do not pretend to be exhaustives. By the way the aim is to be sure that the tested software offers at least expected security (or not) for a personnal use (do not compare this to professional use).

Jump to the test results.

 
B - Overview

The Lockdown Millenium v 8.1.1 firewall [3] is full of interesting features :

  • (Too) Many tools : Trojan Scanner , Share monitoring, Net tools (Ping, whois...)

  • Network software detector.

  • Possibility to see all blocked packets.

  • Download size : 1.9 MB

C - Price

99 $

 
D - Security Effectiveness
  1. Ping: Possible. The result of this test is bad.

  2. The Netbus server: Lockdown does detect the Netbus server when started, if you select Automatic Kill it, netbus server will be shut down each time it's launched so onnexions to the netbus server will be impossible. The result of this test is good.

  3. An nmap scan without Lockdown (on Win 2000 OS SP1 with a "standard" installation, it means NetBios active and so on) :

    $ nmap -v -sT -P0 -O IP_ADDR

    Starting nmap V. 2.53 by [email protected] ( www.insecure.org/nmap/ )
    Initiating TCP connect() scan against (IP_ADDR)
    Adding TCP port 445 (state open).
    Adding TCP port 135 (state open).
    Adding TCP port 1025 (state open).
    Adding TCP port 913 (state open).
    Adding TCP port 139 (state open).

    The TCP connect scan took 0 seconds to scan 1523 ports.

    For OSScan assuming that port 135 is open and port 1 is closed and neither are firewalled

    Interesting ports on (IP_ADDR):
    (The 1518 ports scanned but not shown below are in state: closed)
    Port State Service
    135/tcp open loc-srv
    139/tcp open netbios-ssn
    445/tcp open microsoft-ds
    913/tcp open unknown
    1025/tcp open listen

    TCP Sequence Prediction: Class=random positive increments
    Difficulty=6634 (Worthy challenge)

    Sequence numbers: 747E9CE8 747F63FC 74800BF5 7480E3FE 7481BC4F 7482B3B2

    Remote operating system guess: Windows 2000 RC1 through final release

    Nmap run completed -- 1 IP address (1 host up) scanned in 10 seconds

    Gloups : you'd better
    have a firewall installed :+) !!!

    An nmap TCP scan with Lockdown (on Win 2000 SP1 OS with a "standard" installation, it means NetBios active and so on) with options (Enable DHCP, Enable RPC and Enable Ident all checked) gives events registered in the log which is a good result for detection , but the protection is unefficient :

    $ nmap -v -sT -P0 -O IP_ADDR
    Starting nmap V. 2.54BETA22 ( www.insecure.org/nmap/ )
    Host (IP_ADDR) appears to be up ... good.
    Initiating Connect() Scan against (IP_ADDR)
    Adding TCP port 139 (state open).
    Adding TCP port 1025 (state open).
    Adding TCP port 135 (state open).
    Adding TCP port 445 (state open).
    The Connect() Scan took 0 seconds to scan 1542 ports.
    For OSScan assuming that port 135 is open and port 1 is closed and neither are firewalled
    For OSScan assuming that port 135 is open and port 1 is closed and neither are firewalled

    WARNING: OS didn't match until the try #2 Interesting ports on (IP_ADDR):
    (The 1538 ports scanned but not shown below are in state: closed)
    Port State Service
    135/tcp open loc-srv
    139/tcp open netbios-ssn
    445/tcp open microsoft-ds
    1025/tcp open listen

    Remote OS guesses: Windows Me or Windows 2000 RC1 through final release, Windows Millenium Edition v4.90.3000

    TCP Sequence Prediction: Class=random positive increments
                             Difficulty=15379 (Worthy challenge)
    IPID Sequence Generation: Incremental

    Nmap run completed -- 1 IP address (1 host up) scanned in 4 seconds

    This means that with these options too many ports remains opened and acces attempts are not even logged, and that it remains possible to guess wich OS it is !! This is a bad result.

  4. An nmap UDP scan with Lockdown (on Win 2000 SP1 OS with a "standard" installation, it means NetBios active and so on) gives events registered in the log which is a good result for detection and in this case the protection seems efficient :

    $ nmap -v -sU -P0 IP_ADDR

    Starting nmap V. 2.54BETA22 ( www.insecure.org/nmap/ )
    Host (192.168.2.27) appears to be up ... good.
    Initiating UDP Scan against (192.168.2.27)
    The UDP Scan took 4 seconds to scan 1453 ports.
    Interesting ports on (192.168.2.27):
    (The 1448 ports scanned but not shown below are in state: closed)
    Port State Service
    135/udp open loc-srv
    137/udp open netbios-ns
    138/udp open netbios-dgm
    445/udp open microsoft-ds
    500/udp open isakmp

    Nmap run completed -- 1 IP address (1 host up) scanned in 4 seconds

    This means that the security seems unefficient for UDP. This is a bad result.

  5. The Leaktest : Lockdown doesn't detect the software start, the connection attempt isn't filtered, the result of this test is bad.

  6. Lockdown goes up to 95 % of CPU max. Memory usage is 12 MB, up to 13 MB peek.

  7. The substitution test : (you can do it by yourself for example : you replace Iexplorer.exe with leaktest.exe - yes this one - by renaming the last one and launch it). The result is as long as you've given rights to the usual software to connect (in our example : Iexplorer - Internet Explorer) to Internet Lockdown does not makes any difference, it will allow the trojan horse to connect... the result of this test is bad.

  8. The statefull test : Lockdown is not statefull :

    $ nmap -v -sA -P0 IP_ADDR

    Starting nmap V. 2.54BETA22 ( www.insecure.org/nmap/ )
    Host (IP_ADDR) appears to be up ... good.
    Initiating ACK Scan against (IP_ADDR)
    The ACK Scan took 6 seconds to scan 1542 ports.
    All 1542 scanned ports on (IP_ADDR) are: UNfiltered

    Nmap run completed -- 1 IP address (1 host up) scanned in 6 seconds

 

E - Advantages 
  1. Lockdown can scan against local installed trojans

  2. Lockdown provide some usefull Networok tools

  3. It allows to be less permissive with network shares (if any)

F - Disadvantages
  1. Lockdown cannot makes any difference between local network connexions and Internet connexions.

  2. Price !

  3. The security is really too low ! Even with the marketing claim "different way of security" not even detecting a TCP or an UDP connexion !!!

  4. Too high in memory and to high CPU cost

  5. The GUI is too messy !

  6. The help shows different options than those that really exists !

G - Suggested improvements
  • Improve the logs.

  • Clean the GUI.

  • Improve all the security efficiency !

  • Product internationalization.

  • Lower the price !

  • Improve the help.
H - Summary 

A good idea with all those tools, which needs much more security and work to be really usefull. Really too expansive for a trojan detector (if it works).

Evaluation :

  • Installation process (2) : 10/20

  • Configuration , GUI (3) : 7/20

  • Filtering security (5) : 5/20

  • Additionnal security (3) : 0/20

  • Software load and memory usage (2) : 7/20

  • Import/Export configuration (2) : 0/20

  • Help , FAQ (2) : 5/20

  • Product internationalization (1) : 0/20

Total : 4.5 / 20

Note : the result may be modified with the release , and when adding new criteria or re-evaluating their weight or their content.

I - References
  1. Nmap - Network mapper, a really efficient tool to check networks
    URL http://www.insecure.org/nmap

  2. Netbus Pro - Remote control program often used as an attack tool to control remote PCs.
    URL http://www.netbus.org/
    URL download

  3. Lockdown tool
    URL http://www.lockdowncorp.com/

  4. Leaktest - Small testing software written by Steve Gibson to check firewalls. It makes a simple TCP (ftp) connexion that simulate sennding of personnal content, which can also be used to take remote controle in reverse mode (arg).
    URL http://grc.com/
    URL download