How to block a hacker

I am fighting the same battle with a customer's server and using the logs on their hardware firewall I can determine the IP addresses of the hackers.

Make sure you expose only the ports you need exposed and log on your firewall all activity so you know what is coming in and out.

Please also have a read of my blog article about the increase of this type of attack:

http://alanhardisty.wordpress.com/2010/09/28/increase-in-frequency-of-security-alerts-on-servers-from-hackers-trying-brute-force-password-programs/

I have blocked port 80 access to the server as it was not used, made sure the default website was redirected to /exchange virtual directory, restricted port 443 access to the IP of the customer's Mobile Service Provider and regularly add IP address blocks on their firewall.

It is a continual game of cat and mouse!

I assume those are type 10 logon attempts? If so they are almost guarenteed to be using port 3389 to attempt to gain access. SBS has a very unique feature called remote web workplace which uses 443 and 4125 which is much more secure that 3389 and will pretty well eliminate the thousands of 3389 attempts most anyone gets.

Best place to block IP's or ranges is with your router but hard to allow only the UK.

Actually I just took a look at the Router logs, the attemps are coming from multiple addresses, but by far the majority are coming from one ip address and it is attempting to get into our ftp site. So I can shut that down. It seems that all the other attempts are on port 25. I havent seen any attempts yet on 3389 which I am relieved about.

I have seen the same with port 25 trying to login to your server with usernames / passwords.

Make sure your security is tight and force regular password changes with strong passwords.

Block IP's that keep trying access regularly if from countries you don't communicate with.

Very insecure to be running FTP, or a port 80 web server, on a domain controller. I would recomend hosting elsewhere or even on a PC if you have to have one. I am assuming this is enabled on the SBS?

Blocking ip's is exactly what I want to do. But I dont know how to do it.

I use www.dnsstuff.com to determine the IP address range and then block ALL access to your server from that IP address range on the firewall / router.

If it is possible you are best on the router to allow only specified IP's, but I appreciate that is not always a possibility. Avoid common account names like administrator, admin, sales, POS, backup, manager, and as Alan said make sure you have strong passwords (enforce complexity through GP) and account lockout policies enabled.

I've got strong passwords. So I think i'm covered there. I was just looking in the router. It's only a Netgear DG834. I cant see any way to block traffic from a specific address though.

Click on the Firewall Menu on the left and then on the Inbound Section Add a new rule - add the Ports (All) and then add the IP Range to the From section and click Add.

You will have to create a new rule per IP range to block - which makes the list very long if you block loads.

Thanks Alan, I can see that now. I didn't realise it could be done. I going to split the points though because you both talked a lot of sense.

Thanks guys.

No problems - that's very fair.

Keep an eye on the router logs.  I get them emailed to me daily and monitor what is going on and make additional rules as necessary.

Thanks TownTalk, good luck with it.
Cheers!
--rOB