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Feature #3260

open

SMTP Base64 Decoding of Message Body

Added by Brandon Murphy about 5 years ago. Updated 5 months ago.

Status:
New
Priority:
Normal
Assignee:
Target version:
Effort:
Difficulty:
Label:
Protocol

Description

In attempting to write signatures for the Base64 decoded message body (not an attachment) I find that signatures do not fire as expected.

FWIW, I've observed the same issue for quoted-printable encoding of the message body as well. But intend on opening another issue for that.

I have attached a zip that contains pcap, IDS output, rules, etc.

The pcap has two different tcp sessions, one which includes only a base64 message body (tcp.port 4204), and another that includes the same base64 as an attachment (tcp.port 44228). This was done to validate that base64 decoding of SMTP attachments worked and could be triggered via the file_data keyword as per https://redmine.openinfosecfoundation.org/issues/3190.

The pcap is capturing while using python scripts to read an EML and send it to a python "SMTP Sink". I then used tcprewrite to rewrite the src/dst ips from 127.0.0.1 to something more representative of the traffic I'm attempting to signature.

Please let me know if anything else is required.


Files

base64_message_body_trbl.zip (32.6 KB) base64_message_body_trbl.zip Brandon Murphy, 10/17/2019 06:42 PM

Related issues 4 (3 open1 closed)

Related to Suricata - Feature #3261: SMTP quoted-printable Decoding of Message BodyNewOISF DevActions
Related to Suricata - Task #4097: Suricon 2020 brainstormAssignedVictor JulienActions
Related to Suricata - Task #6443: Suricon 2023 brainstormAssignedVictor JulienActions
Related to Suricata - Bug #5185: MIME URL extraction missing.ClosedPhilippe AntoineActions
Actions #1

Updated by Andreas Herz about 5 years ago

  • Assignee set to OISF Dev
  • Target version set to TBD
Actions #2

Updated by Victor Julien about 5 years ago

  • Tracker changed from Bug to Feature

I think this would require new keywords.

When looking at the example rules:

alert smtp any any -> any any (msg:"base64 message body test 1"; content:"|22|Elephants|22|"; sid:1; rev:1; classtype:trojan-activity;)
alert smtp any any -> any any (msg:"base64 message body test 2 includes file_data"; file_data; content:"|22|Elephants|22|"; sid:2; rev:1; classtype:trojan-activity;)

Sid:1 inspects the raw stream. There is no overloading of this to actually replace with some other buffer, by design.
Sid:2 inspects file_data. This does not include the message, just attachements.

So I think we'd need something like a 'smtp.body' sticky buffer for this, that would indeed base64 decode as needed.

Actions #3

Updated by Victor Julien about 5 years ago

  • Related to Feature #3261: SMTP quoted-printable Decoding of Message Body added
Actions #4

Updated by Victor Julien almost 5 years ago

  • Label Protocol added
Actions #5

Updated by Jeff Lucovsky about 4 years ago

  • Related to Task #4097: Suricon 2020 brainstorm added
Actions #6

Updated by Philippe Antoine about 1 year ago

  • Related to Task #6443: Suricon 2023 brainstorm added
Actions #7

Updated by Philippe Antoine 5 months ago

  • Related to Bug #5185: MIME URL extraction missing. added
Actions #8

Updated by Philippe Antoine 5 months ago

#5185 was a first step for this

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