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Unrestricted DNS Access

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Knowledge Base Best practice rules for Amazon Web Services AWS EC2 Best Practices Unrestricted DNS Access
Last updated: 13 April 2018
Security
Risk level: Medium (should be achieved)
Rule ID: EC2-007

Check your EC2 security groups for inbound rules that allow unrestricted access (i.e. 0.0.0.0/0 or ::/0) to TCP and UDP port 53 and restrict access to only those IP addresses that require it in order to implement the principle of least privilege and reduce the possibility of a breach. TCP/UDP port 53 is used by the Domain Name Service during DNS resolution (DNS lookup), when the requests are sent from DNS clients to DNS servers or between DNS servers: https://goo.gl/jMfAl.

This rule can help you with the following compliance standards:

This rule can help you work with the AWS Well-Architected Framework

This rule resolution is part of the Cloud Conformity Security & Compliance tool for AWS

Allowing unrestricted DNS access can increase opportunities for malicious activity such as such as Denial of Service (DoS) attacks or Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks.

Audit

To determine if your EC2 security groups allow unrestricted DNS access, perform the following:

Using AWS Console

01 Sign in to the AWS Management Console.

02 Navigate to EC2 dashboard at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

03 In the left navigation panel, under NETWORK & SECURITY section, choose Security Groups.

04 Click inside the attributes filter box located under the dashboard top menu and select the following options from the dropdown list:

  1. Choose Protocol and select TCP from the protocols list.
  2. Choose again Protocol and select UDP from the list.
  3. Choose Port Range then select DNS (TCP) as filter input.
  4. Choose Port Range then select DNS (UDP) as filter input.

05 Select an EC2 security group returned as result.

06 Select the Inbound tab from the dashboard bottom panel.

07 Verify the value available in the Source column for any inbound/ingress rules with the Port Range set to 53. If one or more rules have the source set to 0.0.0.0/0 or ::/0 (Anywhere), the selected security group allows unrestricted DNS traffic on port 53, therefore the DNS server can be exploited and used for malicious activities

08 Repeat steps no. 5 – 7 to verify the rest of the EC2 security groups returned as result at step no. 4.

09 Change the AWS region from the navigation bar and repeat the audit process for other regions.

Using AWS CLI

01 Run describe-security-groups command (OSX/Linux/UNIX) using the necessary filters to expose the security groups that have ingress rules that allow DNS traffic (TCP and UDP port 53) from all addresses (0.0.0.0/0 or ::/0): 

aws ec2 describe-security-groups
	--region us-east-1
	--filters Name=ip-permission.from-port,Values=53 Name=ip-permission.to-port,Values=53 Name=ip-permission.cidr,Values='0.0.0.0/0'
	--query 'SecurityGroups[*].{Name:GroupName}'

aws ec2 describe-security-groups
	--region us-east-1
	--filters Name=ip-permission.from-port,Values=53 Name=ip-permission.to-port,Values=53 Name=ip-permission.ipv6-cidr,Values='::/0'
	--query 'SecurityGroups[*].{Name:GroupName}'

02 The command output should return an array with the requested information. If the command does not return any output, there are no EC2 security groups that allow unrestricted DNS access, otherwise it should return the name of the security group(s) that match filter criteria, as shown in the following example: 

[
    {
        "Name": "DNSServerSecurityGroup"
    }
]

03 Repeat step no. 1 and 2 to perform the audit process for other AWS regions.

Remediation / Resolution

To update your security groups inbound/ingress configuration in order to restrict DNS access to specific entities (IP addresses, IP ranges, etc), perform the following:

Using AWS Console

01 Sign in to the AWS Management Console.

02 Navigate to EC2 dashboard at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/.

03 In the navigation panel, under NETWORK & SECURITY section, choose Security Groups.

04 Select the appropriate security group (see Audit section to identify the right one(s)).

05 Select the Inbound tab from the dashboard bottom panel and click the Edit button.

06 In the Edit inbound rules dialog box, change the traffic Source for any inbound rules that allow unrestricted access through TCP/UDP port 53 by performing one of the following actions:

  1. Select My IP from the Source dropdown list to allow inbound traffic only from your machine (from your IP address).
  2. Select Custom from the Source dropdown list and enter one of the following options based on your access requirements:
    • The static IP/Elastic IP address of the permitted host with the suffix set to /32, e.g. 54.164.53.204/32.
    • The IP address range of the permitted hosts in CIDR notation, for example 54.164.53.204/24.
    • The name or ID of another security group available in the same AWS region.

07 Click Save to apply the changes.

08 Repeat steps no. 4 – 7 to update other EC2 security groups that allow unrestricted DNS access.

09 Change the AWS region from the navigation bar and repeat the process for other regions.

Using AWS CLI

01 Run revoke-security-group-ingress command (OSX/Linux/UNIX) to remove the inbound rule(s) that allow unrestricted access through TCP/UDP port 53, from the selected EC2 security group (the command does not return an output):

  • a. Remove the inbound rule that opens the TCP port 53:
    aws ec2 revoke-security-group-ingress
	--region us-east-1
	--group-name DNSServerSecurityGroup
	--protocol tcp
	--port 53
	--cidr 0.0.0.0/0

  • b. Remove the inbound rule that opens the UDP port 53: 
    aws ec2 revoke-security-group-ingress
	--region us-east-1
	--group-name DNSServerSecurityGroup
	--protocol udp
	--port 53
	--cidr 0.0.0.0/0

02 Run authorize-security-group-ingress command (OSX/Linux/UNIX) to add the inbound rules removed at the previous step with a different set of parameters in order to restrict DNS access to specific entities. To add custom inbound/ingress rules to the selected security group, use one of the following options (the command does not produce an output):

  • a. Add an inbound rule that allows DNS access to the specific static IP/Elastic IP address of the permitted host via port 53: 
    aws ec2 authorize-security-group-ingress
	--region us-east-1
	--group-name DNSServerSecurityGroup
	--protocol tcp
	--port 53
	--cidr 54.164.53.204/32

  • b. Add an inbound rule that allows DNS access to the IP address range of the permitted hosts via port 53: 
    aws ec2 authorize-security-group-ingress
	--region us-east-1
	--group-name DNSServerSecurityGroup
	--protocol tcp
	--port 53
	--cidr 54.164.53.204/24

  • c. Add an inbound rule that allows DNS access to another EC2 security group in the same AWS region via port 53:
    aws ec2 authorize-security-group-ingress
	--region us-east-1
	--group-name DNSServerSecurityGroup
	--protocol tcp
	--port 53
	--source-group MyWebAppSecurityGroup

  • d. Change the --protocol parameter value to udp and repeat steps a – c to add the required UDP inbound rule(s) removed at step no. 1.

03 Repeat step no. 1 and 2 to update other EC2 security groups that allow unrestricted DNS access using AWS CLI.

04 Repeat steps no. 1 - 3 to implement the entire process for other AWS regions.

References

Publication date Jun 19, 2016

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