Thanks to Tim for providing some packet captures. Anybody else seeing "weird" TCP packets? In particular we are interested if you see them OUTBOUND. We are looking for the likely broken tool that may generate these packets.

Some of the packet properties:

• Packet size of 60 bytes (IP Headers + TCP)
• Protocol is always TCP
• various TOS values
• various (random?) IP IDs. But repeating for same source IP
• various TTLs (possible that packets from different IPs actually originate from different host)
• DF flag is set
• some source IPs are clearly "odd", e.g. multicast?source IPs like 255.127.0.0
• TCP source and dest port is 0
• Sequence numbers sometimes repeat even if source IPs change (argument for likely spoofed sources)
• overall malformed TCP headers (e.g. header size < 20, various bad flag combinations).
• Window size of 6667 (maybe this was supposed to be the source or dest. port?)
• The packets arrive at relatively high rate (couple packets/sec with breaks... )

Quick tshark?output?of a sample with obfuscated target IP:

85.133.23.50 -> x.y.z.14 TCP 74 [TCP Retransmission] 0?0 [SYN, RST, ACK, URG, ECN, CWR, NS, Reserved] Seq=0 Ack=1 Win=6667 Urg=0 Len=0
85.133.23.50 -> x.y.z.14 TCP 74 [TCP Retransmission] 0?0 [SYN, RST, ACK, URG, ECN, CWR, NS, Reserved] Seq=0 Ack=1 Win=6667 Urg=0 Len=0
192.99.37.41 -> x.y.z.119 TCP 74 [TCP Retransmission] 0?0 [FIN, SYN, RST, PSH, URG, CWR, NS, Reserved] Seq=0 Win=6667 Urg=0 Len=16
192.99.37.41 -> x.y.z.119 TCP 74 [TCP Retransmission] 0?0 [FIN, SYN, RST, PSH, URG, CWR, NS, Reserved] Seq=0 Win=6667 Urg=0 Len=16
192.99.37.41 -> x.y.z.119 TCP 74 [TCP Retransmission] 0?0 [FIN, SYN, RST, PSH, URG, CWR, NS, Reserved] Seq=0 Win=6667 Urg=0 Len=16
192.99.37.41 -> x.y.z.119 TCP 74 [TCP Retransmission] 0?0 [FIN, SYN, RST, PSH, URG, CWR, NS, Reserved] Seq=0 Win=6667 Urg=0 Len=16
192.95.30.185 -> x.y.z.24 TCP 74 0?0 [FIN, PSH, ACK, URG, ECN, Reserved] Seq=1 Ack=1 Win=6667, bogus TCP header length (0, must be at least 20)
137.118.96.23 -> x.y.z.70 TCP 74 0?0 [FIN, SYN, RST, PSH, URG, ECN, CWR, NS, Reserved] Seq=0 Win=6667, bogus TCP header length (12, must be at least 20)

Internet Protocol Version 4, Src: 137.118.96.23 (137.118.96.23), Dst: x.y.z.70 (x.y.z.70)
Version: 4
Header Length: 20 bytes
Differentiated Services Field: 0x10 (DSCP 0x04: Unknown DSCP; ECN: 0x00: Not-ECT (Not ECN-Capable Transport))
0001 00.. = Differentiated Services Codepoint: Unknown (0x04)
.... ..00 = Explicit Congestion Notification: Not-ECT (Not ECN-Capable Transport) (0x00)
Total Length: 60
Identification: 0xa2c7 (41671)
Flags: 0x02 (Don't Fragment)
0... .... = Reserved bit: Not set
.1.. .... = Don't fragment: Set
..0. .... = More fragments: Not set
Fragment offset: 0
Time to live: 49
Protocol: TCP (6)
Header checksum: 0x0cde [validation disabled]
[Good: False]
[Bad: False]
Source: 137.118.96.23 (137.118.96.23)
Destination: x.y.z.70
Transmission Control Protocol, Src Port: 0 (0), Dst Port: 0 (0), Seq: 0
Source Port: 0 (0)
Destination Port: 0 (0)
[Stream index: 872]
[TCP Segment Len: 28]
Sequence number: 0?(relative sequence number)
Header Length: 12 bytes (bogus, must be at least 20)

09:16:46.687528 IP 137.118.96.23.0 > x.y.z.70.0: tcp 28 [bad hdr length 12 - too short, < 20]
0x0000: 4510 003c a2c7 4000 3106 0cde 8976 6017 E..<..@.1....v`.
0x0010: xxyy zz46 0000 0000 c0f1 59ce 0000 0000 .3.F......Y.....
0x0020: 3bef 1a0b ff7f 0000 6cf6 2346 0000 0000 ;.......l.#F....
0x0030: 0000 0000 0000 0000 a002 7d78..........}x

---
Johannes B. Ullrich, Ph.D.
STI|Twitter|LinkedIn