Probing through NAT

[Synthetic]

I am currently enrolled in a network security course at my college and for a final project the class is split into 2 teams with the intent for each team to attempt to break into the others network. I will try to explain the setup as best I can.

The networks are ran on VMware on Ubuntu 10.04. There is a windows DMZ server, a linux DMZ server and a Hi-interaction honeypot with public IP addresses. In addition to these there is a windows xp client and an IDS/Log inside the network using NAT addressing.

My understanding on NAT is that without having a client on the inside of the network, you can not establish a connection with any clients using NAT unless they initiate the connection first. The information I found confirmed this but really didn't go much further. Is there a way to scan these systems through the NAT without first compromising one of the outside systems and launching the scan from there? Or some other way of tricking the systems to send information out to us?

Sorry if this was covered somewhere else, I couldn't find much information related to this on the forums.

[Archangel-Amael]

So what you are saying is your Professor told you to "hax0r" this box and did not tell or provide you a means to do so?

No offence but you are not the first to ask such a question and I (probably among many others ) am amazed at this.


It's a good thing we don't practice surgery that way.
Doctor : Here's a scalpel and one person for you,... Find the part that doesn't belong and fix it.
Good luck.

[purehate]

The best part is that he is supposed to "hax0r" a fairly sophisticated setup but is unclear on how NAT works. No wonder our government cyber defense sucks so bad if we are hiring people like this coming out of "network Security" schools.

@Synthetic Maybe you should search the forums a little and you will see that we get a story like this almost every day.

[thorin]

Here's a great example:
http://www.backtrack-linux.org/forum...orum/27691.htm

I am currently enrolled in a network security course at my college and for a final project the class is split into 2 teams with the intent for each team to attempt to break into the others network.

0) You fail because we either don't believe your story or refuse to help people with homework and school assignments (especially open ended requests demonstrating a lack of fundamental understanding on the topic). Details re: NAT can be found all over the web (practice some google'fu).
1) You fail the course because you don't understand NAT.
2) As for your money back because you've made it to the final project and they've failed to teach you about NAT (which is an Internetworking 101 type topic).

So what you are saying is your Professor told you to "hax0r" this box and did not tell or provide you a means to do so?

No offence but you are not the first to ask such a question and I (probably among many others ) am amazed at this.

Agreed. I see two options here, neither of which make me want to help.
1) Junky school.
2) Junky student.

Edit: Oh and to address all the usual come backs. Yes everyone had to start somewhere (generally: reading, school, trying things themselves, etc). Yes we probably seem mean or rude, we accept it, you should too.

[gunrunr]

Man they teach some lame security class at my college too, i declined it, too hokey. I also didn't take their linux course because it was incredibly basic, half the semester through and you could maybe install a program from a .tar. And most colleges won't let you take network security unless you have already taken networking courses as prerequisites. No professor is gonna break out a game of CTF as a final project unless you were taking CEH classes.