Question

Opening secure port to receive TCP data

Asked by: MCLR

I have opened a port on a server which listenens for and processes incoming data using an app in vb which uses TcpListener ( Dim tcpListener As New TcpListener(portNumber))

I have modified the firewall to allow data through on the port and i am getting the data ok. The problem i have is i want to secure the port in some way , in the same way that i can apply an SSL cert to a web site.

Has any one any suggesstions\information on how i would go about this ?

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Asked On
2009-11-05 at 07:01:41ID24874628
Topics

TCP/IP

,

Security Issues in Programming

,

Networking Security Vulnerabilities

Participating Experts
1
Points
500
Comments
7

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Answers

 

by: JimUPosted on 2009-11-05 at 07:09:58ID: 25750243

You can create an SslStream.  See here:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.net.security.sslstream%28VS.80%29.aspx

Although the example is in C#, you hopefully can get the idea of how it works.  Basically, you still use TcpListener to get the connection, then add an SslStream to the client connection using a cert and key-pair.

 

by: MCLRPosted on 2009-11-05 at 07:38:27ID: 25750605

thanks , unfortunatly i dont have control over the client code and they arent using the .net tcpClient they are using Winsock2 lib
which means i cant use this method, any other ways around this ?

 

by: JimUPosted on 2009-11-05 at 07:47:11ID: 25750704

Just to be clean, by "client connection" I meant the TcpClient connection object you get back from TcpListener, not the actual remote client code.

If the actual remote client can't connect over SSL or be modified then you may not be able to do anything to encrypt or authenticate the connection.

 

by: MCLRPosted on 2009-11-05 at 07:51:13ID: 25750750

the actual remote client can modify their code, but i wasnt sure if to use the SSL stream both client and listener would have be using the same
so if i modify my code to use the ssl stream can i just give the actual client a certificate or something that they can add to their side ?

apoligies if i am a bit vague , am new to this side of things

 

by: JimUPosted on 2009-11-05 at 07:58:23ID: 25750815

If they can already connect over SSL then you may not need to do anything other than implement it on your side.  Otherwise, they will need to create an SSL connection from their side also (can use the same SslStream object).

It would be up to you and/or them to authenticate the connection by checking the certificates that are sent when the connection is made.  You don't have to do that and the connection will be encrypted.  The example on the Microsoft site shows how to get started doing this.

 

by: MCLRPosted on 2009-11-05 at 08:04:30ID: 25750879

so if i apply a SSL certificate to the server itself through IIS and give them the certificate number , they can handle the encryption from their side ?? therefore the connection is secure when the data is being sent and i dont need to handle it from processing the data ?

 

by: JimUPosted on 2009-11-05 at 08:15:49ID: 25750995

Anonymous SSL connections don't usually require manually giving anyone a certificate, it's all sent automatically during the SslStream negotiation.  It will be encrypted.

However, you will need to generate the certificate and a key-pair to use for your SslStream.  This can be done a number of ways.  Easiest would be to use a Microsoft CA if you have one on your network.  Or you can get a certificate from Versign/Thawte/or whoever.  Or you could create a self-signed certificate using something like OpenSSL.  When using a self-signed certificate you might have to add it to the certificate stores on the remote side so that it is trusted.

Otherwise, yes, SslStreams act like any other stream you can read and write to so your application should work the same (or with minimal modification).

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