Add support for TCP Fast Open to prevent false negatives #1204
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Nmap currently discards SYN-ACK packets having the TCP Fast Open option (RFC 7413) set. Thus leading to false negative results.
This patch implements the support of this option, fixing the false negative.
I tested successfully this patch in the field, of course.
Full story:
During an internal pentest, I discovered a false negative on a TCP port that I knew for sure was open. SYN scans did not see it, whereas connect scans were good.
Running nmap with
-ddd
I saw that the SYN ACK packet was discarded:Rejecting TCP packet because of bad TCP header
In Wireshark, I saw that the TCP Fast Open option was enabled.
Its kind is "34" which is not currently handled in the code. Therefore the code reads the next byte, which is the length of the option and incorrectly interprets it as a kind. According to the RFC, the length is a range from 6 to 18. In my case it was 8, so the code assumed it was a timestamp header and it was then incorrect.
I know that TCP Fast Open option should not appear in SYN-ACKs if the option was not present in the prior SYN. However, this is what I observed on my client's network...
This is also related to this message in the mailing list.
You can test it against the following scapy code, after preventing the default behavior of the kernel with
iptables -A OUTPUT -p tcp --tcp-flags RST RST --sport 8000 -j DROP
With the current nmap, you get:
And with the patch: