CanaryPi

Startup project to create a simple to deploy honey pot style detection tool for alerting on common network attacks. This is currently and early alpha build used for public testing and feedback while it's further developed.

Requirements

This container requires the --net=host option when starting. At the time of writing this that option is only supported in linux so this container will not work on Windows or Mac Os hosts. This is because the scripts need to send broadcast packets to the host network. The docker container is cross compiled using buildx so canarypi should be able to run on x86 or arm machines.

Plan

I'm hoping to take some pre-existing tools and techniques for detecting common network attacks, like responder and port scanning, and package them in an easy to deploy tool. I'm hoping this will help small IT teams that can't afford fancy security tools detect attacks on their network.

Current Features

Currently the following attacks can be detected on a network

NBNS spoofing. Typically from Responder
LLMNR spoofing. Typically from Responder
mDNS spoofing. Typically from Responder
TCP port scanning. Typically from NMap
Rogue ipv6 dhcp server detection. Typically from MITM6

The next attacks that I plan on adding detection for are

UDP port scanning. Typically from NMap

If there are other network based attacks that you would like to see me add support for please feel free to reachout by opening an issue or pull request.

Instructions

Quickstart

If you just want to get up and running quickly you can use the following command. With the defaults you will receive a test email when the program starts up. Then you will receive an email each time a new attack is detected. By default if a particular attack hasn't been detected for 10 minutes it is considered over and you will receive a summay email. This time limit can be changed to whatever you want, just see the optional params tables below. If you didn't specify that you do NOT want a startup email but you still didn't receive it there is likely something wrong with the email info you provided. The canarypi log file should contain some information on what went wrong.

If you use the quickstart command below the logs will be located in /var/lib/docker/volumes/canary_logs/_data/. These will contain a more detail history of the attacks that can be used for forensics.

The other volume /var/lib/docker/volumes/canary_logs/_data/ is just used for temporary files where attack info is stored during an attack. When the attack is over the files in this folder are read into a summary and then delted. You should use the logs, not these files, to look up attack history info.

Note all times reported by Canarypi are currently in UTC

docker run -dit --net=host \
--restart unless-stopped \
-e EMAIL_SENDER='address used to send alert emails' \
-e EMAIL_SENDER_PASSWORD='password for account used to send emails' \
-e EMAIL_RECIPIENT='address to receive alert emails' \
-v canary_logs:/usr/src/app/logs \
-v canary_attacks:/usr/src/app/attacks \
macmondev/canarypi:latest

Advanced Usage

There are a lot of optional params that can be passed to the container. Just see the parameter tables below. Any of the params can be added to the docker startup command using

-e paramname='paramvalue'

For instance adding this would disable NBNS spoof detection

-e DISABLE_NBNS_SCANNING='True'

You don't need to wrap all of the param values in single quotes but it's a good idea, especially if the values contain special characters.

Specific logging levels can be set for console, file, and syslog. This allows for logging as much, or as little information, as you want. Console log settings control what will go into the docker logs. File log settings control what will go into a daily rotating log file on disk. Syslog log settings are useful for sending logs to a SIEM or other central logging system.

Using Docker Compose

Docker compose can be a nice clean way to manage docker containers. You can put your CanaryPi settings into a docker-compose file to make updating to new versions super simple. Here are some quickstart docker-compose setup instructions.

Install docker compose
Create a folder named CanaryPi to hold your docker-compose file.
Create a docker-compose.yml file in the new folder. It should look similar to this. You can use any optional param from the tables below just like you can in a regular docker run command. Just add them to the environment section. Note this example stores the password in the docker-compose file. It's better to use docker secrets but takes a little bit more setup time.

Version: '3'
services:
  canarypi:
    image: macmondev/canarypi:latest
    container_name: canarypi
    restart: unless-stopped
    environment:
      - EMAIL_SENDER='address used to send alert emails'
      - EMAIL_SENDER_PASSWORD='password for account used to send emails'
      - EMAIL_RECIPIENT='address to receive alert emails'
    volumes:
      - canary_logs:/usr/src/app/logs
      - canary_attacks:/usr/src/app/attacks
    network_mode: 'host'

volumes:
  canary_logs:
  canary_attacks:

Now to start the container just cd into the same folder as the docker-compose.yml file and type docker-compose up -d and the container will be spun up in the background with the settings you defined.
To update to a new version of CanaryPi just change back into the same folder and run these commands
- docker-compose down stops the container
- docker-compose pull pulls new version
- docker-compose up -d starts the container with all the same settings using the new version! No need to keep referencing your startup commands and options.

Parameters

Detection Related Parameters

NBNS Params

Name	Required	Default Value	Description
DISABLE_NBNS_SCANNING	False	False	Set to True if you do not want to try and detect NBNS spoofing
BROADCAST_IP	False	224.0.0.252	By default this program will send nbns requests to the multicast address 224.0.0.252 which is not protocol compliant but has worked in testing. For better detection set this value to the actual broadcast address of your network. Like 192.168.1.255
NBNS_SLEEP	False	30	Determines how ofter the network is checked for NBNS spoofing

LLMNR Params

Name	Required	Default Value	Description
DISABLE_LLMNR_SCANNING	False	False	Set to True if you do not want to try and detect LLMNR spoofing
LLMNR_SLEEP	False	30	Determines how ofter the network is checked for LLMNR spoofing

mDNS Params

Name	Required	Default Value	Description
DISABLE_MDNS_SCANNING	False	False	Set to True if you do not want to try and detect mDNS spoofing
MDNS_SLEEP	False	30	Determines how ofter the network is checked for mDNS spoofing

DHCPv6 Params

Name	Required	Default Value	Description
DISABLE_DHCPV6_DETECTION	False	False	Set to True if you do not want to try and detect DHCPv6 servers
DHCPV6_WHITELIST	False	null	By default this program will alert you about every DHCPv6 server on your network. If there are valid DHCPv6 servers that you do not want to receive alerts for provide a comma seperated list of IPv6 addresses
DHCPV6_SLEEP	False	30	Determines how ofter the network is checked for DHCPv6 servers

Port Scan Detection Params

Name	Required	Default Value	Description
DISABLE_PORTSCAN_DETECTION	False	False	Set to True if you do not want to try and detect port scan attacks
PORTSCAN_TCP_PORTS	False	'21, 25, 80, 110, 143, 443, 445, 465, 3389'	Set to a comma seperated list of port numbers. If anything on the network attempts to connect to any of these TCP ports you should be alerted and the connection info logged

Logging Related Params

Name	Required	Default Value	Description
CONSOLE_LOG_LEVEL	False	warning	Set the docker console logging level. Supported values are debug, info, warning, error, and critical. At least warning must be set to report on detected attacks
FILE_LOG_LEVEL	False	warning	Set logging level for the log files. Supported values are debug, info, warning, error, and critical. At least warning must be set to report on detected attacks
FILE_LOG_RETENTION	False	30	How many days of rotating log files to keep
SYSLOG_ENABLED	False	False	Set to true to enable syslog logging
SYSLOG_ADDRESS	False	null	The ip address of the syslog server. Required if SYSLOG_ENABLED is True
SYSLOG_PORT	False	514	The port that the syslog server is listening on
SYSLOG_TCP	False	False	Set to false for UDP syslog server or True for TCP syslog server
SYSLOG_LOG_LEVEL	False	warning	The level of logs to be sent to the syslog server. Supported values are debug, info, warning, error, and critical. At least warning must be set to report on detected attacks

Email Related Parameters

Name	Required	Default Value	Description
ENABLE_EMAIL_ALERTS	False	True	If set to False the program wont attempt to send any emails
ENABLE_EMAIL_STARTUP_TEST	False	True	If set to False the program wont send an email on startup.
ENABLE_EMAIL_SERVER_AUTHENTICATION	False	True	If set to false the program wont attempt to login to the smtp server when sending emails. Useful if using an anonymous relay.
EMAIL_SERVER_ADDRESS	False	smtp.gmail.com	The email server that the program will connect to for sending email notifications
EMAIL_SERVER_PORT	False	587	The smtp port for the email server used to send notications
EMAIL_SERVER_STARTTLS	False	True	Set to False if the email server does not require start tls. Setting this to false sends your credentials in clear text and is considered insecure
EMAIL_RECIPIENT	False		The email address that will receive any email notifications. Only equied if ENABLE_EMAIL_ALERTS is True
EMAIL_SENDER	False		The email address that will be used to send email notifications. Only requied if ENABLE_EMAIL_ALERTS is True
EMAIL_SENDER_PASSWORD	False		The password for the email address used to send email notifications. Only requied if ENABLE_EMAIL_ALERTS is True and ENABLE_EMAIL_SERVER_AUTHENTICATION is set to True

Misc Parameters

Name	Required	Default Value	Description
ATTACK_TIMEOUT_DURATION	False	600	The ammount of innactivity time, in seconds, before an attack is considered over. So by default if an attack was started, but hasn't been detected for over ten minutes, it is considered over. You will be notified based on your logging and email settings.