Spoofer

Please download our Spoofer Project Brochure to learn how you can help protect your network, your customers and the Internet.

We have developed and support a new client-server system for Windows, MacOS, and UNIX-like systems that periodically tests a network's ability to both send and receive packets with forged source IP addresses (spoofed packets). We are (in the process of) producing reports and visualizations that will inform operators, response teams, and policy analysts. The system measures different types of forged addresses, including private and neighboring addresses. The test results will allow us to analyze characteristics of networks deploying source address validation (e.g., network location, business type).

Seeking to minimize Internet's susceptibility to spoofed DDoS attacks, we are developing and supporting open-source software tools to assess and report on the deployment of source address validation (SAV) best anti-spoofing practices. This project includes applied research, software development, new data analytics, systems integration, operations and maintenance, and an interactive analysis and reporting service.

Results

We generate a summary report on the current "state" of Internet IP source address spoofing/filtering using data from an active measurement tool. Thus far, we've collected data from thousands of clients, networks and providers. More details and published results from our research are also available.

Download Client Software Please help! By downloading and running our client software, you'll help advance the collective understanding of how to better protect the Internet. See screenshots of the tester in action, and a FAQ if you have questions. The following client packages are available. The sources should compile on any POSIX system. Please contact the mailing list with any issues or questions.

Client Software Build Description Notes Spoofer-1.4.6-win32.exe Windows Binary Installer (signed) Spoofer-1.4.6-macosx.pkg Mac OSX Binary Installer (signed) Spoofer-1.4.6 PPA Ubuntu Packages for: xenial bionic focal (signed) apt-add-repository ppa:spoofer-dev/spoofer spoofer-1.4.6.tar.gz Source Code changelog.txt ChangeLog

Why does IP spoofing matter?

Our FAQ covers common questions about spoofing relevance. The IP spoofing vulnerability is the most fundamental vulnerability of the TCP/IP architecture, which has proven remarkably scalable, in part due to the design choice to leave responsibility for security to the end hosts. Thus, the TCP/IP Internet architecture includes no explicit notion of authenticity. New spoofing-based attacks regularly appear (most recently against the DNS infrastructure) despite decades of previous exploits and prevention/tracing attempts. Current spoofing prevention mechanisms suffer from incentive issues (employing filtering does not prevent a provider from receiving spoofed source packets), deployment difficulty and management complexity. Our research seeks to inform architectural design, and security and policy mechanisms for preventing future attacks.

Watch the Video: "What is IP Spoofing?" on YouTube and via direct download (.mp4)

Methodology

The spoofer program attempts to send a series of spoofed UDP packets to servers distributed throughout the world. These packets are designed to test:

Different classes of spoofed IPv4 and IPv6 addresses, including private and routable

Ability to spoof neighboring, adjacent addresses

Ability to spoof inbound (towards the client) and outbound (from the client)

Where along the path filtering is observed

Presence of a NAT device along the path

Spoofer in the News

Publications

Development Team

Funding support

The Spoofer project is sponsored by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate, Homeland Security Advanced Research Projects Agency, Cyber Security Division (DHS S&T/HSARPA/CSD) BAA HSHQDC-14-R-B0005, and the Government of United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland via contract number D15PC00188. The views and conclusions contained herein do not necessarily representing the official policies or endorsements, either expressed or implied, of DHS, the U.S. Government, or the Government of United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Project originally invented and hosted by MIT ANA.