Firewalk is an active reconnaissance
network security tool that attempts to determine what layer 4 protocols a
given IP forwarding device will pass. Firewalk works by sending out
TCP or UDP packets with a TTL one greater than the targeted gateway. If
the gateway allows the traffic, it will forward the packets to the next
hop where they will expire and elicit an ICMP_TIME_EXCEEDED message.
If the gateway hostdoes not allow the traffic, it will likely drop the
packets on the floor and we will see no response.
To get the correct IP TTL that will result in expired packets one
beyond the gateway we need to ramp up hop-counts. We do this
in the same manner that traceroute works. Once we have the gateway
hopcount (at that point the scan is said to be `bound`) we can begin
our scan.It is significant to note the fact that the ultimate destination host does not have to be reached. It just needs to be somewhere downstream, on the other side of the gateway, from the scanning host.
