I generated 16 character (upper/lower) subdomain and set up a virtual host for it in Apache, and within an hour was seeing vulnerability scans.

How are folks digging this up? What’s the strategy to avoid this?

I am serving it all with a single wildcard SSL cert, if that’s relevant.

Thanks

Edit:

  • I am using a single wildcard cert, with no subdomains attached/embedded/however those work
  • I don’t have any subdomains registered with DNS.
  • I attempted dig axfr example.com @ns1.example.com returned zone transfer DENIED

Edit 2: I’m left wondering, is there an apache endpoint that returns all configured virtual hosts?

Edit 3: I’m going to go through this hardening guide and try against with a new random subdomain https://www.tecmint.com/apache-security-tips/

  • eli@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    3 months ago

    I run my webservers behind a pfsense firewall with ssl offloading(using a wildcard cert) with a static IP and use Haproxy to have sub-domain’s go to individual servers. Even though I’ve seen my fair share of scans, I only ever expose port 443 and keep things updated.

    Recently though someone on here mentioned routing everything over Tailscale via a VPS. I didn’t want to pay for a VPS and frankly can’t even find one that is reasonably priced in the US(bandwidth limits mainly), so I threw Tailscale onto my pfsense, setup split-dns on Tailscale’s admin panel with my domain name, and then reconfigured Haproxy to listen on my Tailscale interface. Even got IPv6 working(huge pain due to a bug it seems). Oh and setup pfblocker.

    My current plan is I’m going to run my webservers behind Tailscale and keep my game servers public and probably segment those servers to a different vlan/subnet/dmz/whatever. And maybe just have a www/blog landing page that is read only on 443 and have it’s config/admin panel accessible via my tailscale only.

    Anyway, back on topic. I run my game servers and I don’t advertise them out anywhere(wildcard cert) and do whitelist only, yet I still see my minecraft servers get hit constantly on port 25565.

    So not much you can do except minimize exposure as much as possible.

  • 4am@lemmy.zipEnglish
    0·
    3 months ago

    For anyone who needs to read it: At the end of the day this is obscurity, not security; however obscurity is a good secondary defense because it buys time.

    I too would be interested to learn how this leaked

    • zeca@lemmy.mlEnglish
      0·
      3 months ago

      Isnt security mostly achieved by heavy obscurity? A password secures because other people dont know what it is, it is obscured.

      • pishadoot@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        1·
        3 months ago

        They’re not the same.

        Hiding an unlocked treasure chest in the forest is obscurity. Sure, you might be the only one who knows it’s there at first but eventually someone might come across it.

        Having a vault at a bank branch is security - everyone knows there’s a vault there, but you’ll be damned if you’re going to get into it when you’re not authorized.

        Good passwords, when implemented correctly, use hashing (one way encryption) to provide security. It’s not obscured, people know you need a password to access the thing (in our example)