Is NAT can provide some kind of protection?

[bill at herrin.us (William Herrin)]

On Thu, Jan 13, 2011 at 11:50 PM, Douglas Otis <dotis at mail-abuse.org> wrote:
> Unfortunately, a large number of web sites have been compromised, where an
> unseen iFrame might be included in what is normally safe content. ?A device
> accessing the Internet through a NATs often creates opportunities for
> unknown sources to reach the device as well. ?Once an attacker invokes a
> response, exposures persist, where more can be discovered. ?There are also
> exposures related to malicious scripts enabled by a general desire to show
> users dancing fruit. ?Microsoft now offers a toolkit that allows users a
> means to 'decide' what should be allowed to see fruit dance. ?Users that
> assume local networks are safe are often disappointed when someone on their
> network wants an application do something that proves unsafe. ?Methods to
> penetrate firewalls are often designed into 'fun' applications or poorly
> considered OS features.

Doug,

Passive attacks. Very effective. Breeze past the firewall like it
wasn't there. Hard to target though; work best when you're fishing for
whatever you can get instead of trying to crack a particular system.
Some success combining them with social engineering.

Not terribly relevant to the discussion in this thread. Firewalls
mostly block active attacks where a hacker is pushing unsolicited data
at a host instead of waiting for the host to request data. Whether or
not NAT is involved doesn't really change that larger picture of the
general class of attacks firewalls obstruct.

-Bill


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