On blocking Chinese IP addresses

...mammoth, seemingly neverending task, but it immediately began to pay off. Fishy web server requests tapered off greatly, and while there are still a few every day, it's now become a manageable problem. If things keep up at the same pace, sometime in the next few months they're going to have blocked every IP in China. As Korean IPs pop up in the error log, those get blocked as well. And what about Taiwan? Russia? India? And more?

First, let's look at why China is such a problem. Well, to my mind, there are several potential causes for the flood of Chinese hackerish web requests.

New users. The middle class in China is growing, and since many, many computers are made in China and are therefore inexpensive, it's not surprising that more and more Chinese are buying PCs. Unfortunately, Chinese citizens are about as well-trained and about as security conscious as typical citizens in Western nations ... which means, not at all. One of my friends would always scan the IP addresses of the Chinese machines targeting him, and he reported that those machines invariably were riddled with hacker tools and open ports. Were the owners of these machines even aware that their computers were being used to attack other machines? Who knows? And what's the Chinese word for "owned"?

Chinese hackers. I have no doubt that there are gangs of Chinese hackers - whether employed by the government, organized crime, or freelance - that are working as hard as they can to take over computers around the world for all sorts of nefarious purposes. They're just like hacker gangs anywhere else in the world. Spam networks, phishing, DDOS attacks: it's all being done. There was a recent TIME magazine article about Chinese hackers that I found hysterical in tone and factuality, but the overall message of the piece rings true to me.

When they told me what they had done - independently, mind you, of each other - I asked them the same question: did you tell your web hosting clients? In both cases, they said they had not. In fact, one told me, "I'm hosting the web site of the local professional society, for instance, and there is absolutely no reason for anyone in China to access that site. I'm also hosting a site for nurses. Why would someone in China need that? I can't think of any clients who have content that a person in China would need to see. OK, I take that back. I have two churches on there, and maybe, maybe, a missionary or someone like that in China would want to access their sites. In that case, I figure that the church will get contacted, and then I'll get contacted, and at that time I'll allow access for that specific IP. But that's it. Anyone else in China - screw 'em."

I don't know what to think about that attitude. On the one hand, I can understand his frustration, and his logic makes sense... to a point. If none of his clients have web sites that someone in China has a good reason to access, then maybe it's OK to block them. On the other hand, how can he be so sure? And should it really be up to clients to have to figure out that over a billion Chinese can't access their sites? Should he tell his clients? Perhaps what his clients don't know will help keep them from getting confused.

Then there's also the legality of taking action against a hacker who has compromised a machine, after all the heavy forensics are done. It's hard enough to convince law enforcement to followup on a cyber crime; it's harder still when the hacker lives in another country. Blocking Chinese IP address ranges is one thing, but going further and blocking every country except where your organization (or client's organization) does business becomes a slippery slope very fast.

Here's a good question. What needs to come first: the needs of the web servers my friends run, or the needs of a guy sitting in Shanghai that wants to view the content of that web site? I'm not sure if the Chinese government even realizes the extent of the problems coming out of its IP space, or if it even cares. But if things don't improve sometime soon, Chinese Net users may find that they have more than just the government's odious Great Firewall to deal with; instead, they may be faced with millions of firewall blocks all over the world.

So tell me, and I'll pass your thoughts along to my friends: what should they do?

Copyright © 2005, SecurityFocus

Scott Granneman is a senior consultant for Bryan Consulting Inc. in St. Louis. He specializes in Internet Services and developing Web applications for corporate, educational, and institutional clients.