ZyXEL Communications ZyXEL ZyWALL P1, User Manual

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ZyWALL P1 User’s Guide
100 Chapter 6 Firewalls
If an initiation packet originates on the LAN, this means that someone is trying to make a
connection from the LAN to the Internet. Assuming that this is an acceptable part of the
security policy (as is the case with the default policy), the connection will be allowed. A cache
entry is added which includes connection information such as IP addresses, TCP ports,
sequence numbers, etc.
When the ZyWALL receives any subsequent packet (from the Internet or from the LAN), its
connection information is extracted and checked against the cache. A packet is only allowed to
pass through if it corresponds to a valid connection (that is, if it is a response to a connection
which originated on the LAN).
6.5.4 UDP/ICMP Security
UDP and ICMP do not themselves contain any connection information (such as sequence
numbers). However, at the very minimum, they contain an IP address pair (source and
destination). UDP also contains port pairs, and ICMP has type and code information. All of
this data can be analyzed in order to build "virtual connections" in the cache.
For instance, any UDP packet that originates on the LAN will create a cache entry. Its IP
address and port pairs will be stored. For a short period of time, UDP packets from the WAN
that have matching IP and UDP information will be allowed back in through the firewall.
A similar situation exists for ICMP, except that the ZyWALL is even more restrictive.
Specifically, only outgoing echoes will allow incoming echo replies, outgoing address mask
requests will allow incoming address mask replies, and outgoing timestamp requests will
allow incoming timestamp replies. No other ICMP packets are allowed in through the firewall,
simply because they are too dangerous and contain too little tracking information. For
instance, ICMP redirect packets are never allowed in, since they could be used to reroute
traffic through attacking machines.
6.5.5 Upper Layer Protocols
Some higher layer protocols (such as FTP and RealAudio) utilize multiple network
connections simultaneously. In general terms, they usually have a "control connection" which
is used for sending commands between endpoints, and then "data connections" which are used
for transmitting bulk information.
Consider the FTP protocol. A user on the LAN opens a control connection to a server on the
Internet and requests a file. At this point, the remote server will open a data connection from
the Internet. For FTP to work properly, this connection must be allowed to pass through even
though a connection from the Internet would normally be rejected.
In order to achieve this, the ZyWALL inspects the application-level FTP data. Specifically, it
searches for outgoing "PORT" commands, and when it sees these; it adds a cache entry for the
anticipated data connection. This can be done safely, since the PORT command contains
address and port information, which can be used to uniquely identify the connection.