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Thread: Apache vhosts - security through obscurity

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Mar 2006
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    Brisbane, Australia
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    64
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    Ubuntu

    Question Apache vhosts - security through obscurity

    I have a question for the masses.
    It's apache (with vhosts) specific.
    It's a little hack I was thinking about, and it is security through obscurity. Yes, I know that is not the best approach, but I figure, combine this with the other usual things (hhtps, validated input, yadda, yadda) and it couldn't hurt. What I am wondering is if my thoughts are correct, hence the email.....

    I want a website online, with access restricted to a handful of people with known IP Addressses.

    You have an apache server running vhosts.
    One of the vhosts was the usual http://www.mydomain.com - a _valid_ domain name.
    The other (obscured) domain was http://uiefnuiebnfvuienvioen.com - some nonsense name that does not exist on the internet - or maybe even http://www.google.com - a well known host that _does_ exist.
    Now, if you put http://uiefnuiebnfvuienvioen.com in your bookmarks, and your hosts file (with the matching IP address), you could contact the second website.
    This may be an issue if you used google.com. Maybe you could use http://www.google.com.au for your "real" we searches.... so you could still use google.
    For a bit more STO, you could restrict it to your known IP address (using dyndns, or somesuch).

    Port scanner would see apache, and a probe would reveal website #1.
    Would "bad guys" have a way to detect website #2 ???

    I realise if someone did request http://uiefnuiebnfvuienvioen.com (or http://www.google.com) from your site, they would receive the pages.
    I wouldn't think the chance of someone doing that would be very likely, at all.
    So, this would just be a bit of security through obscurity "icing on the cake" as such.

    Your input and thoughts would be most appreciated.
    What's on your network ???
    http://www.open-audit.org

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Apr 2005
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    Hidden!
    Distro
    Ubuntu

    Re: Apache vhosts - security through obscurity

    not sure about security, but I do all my testing prior to going live (or while a client umms and ahhhs about a domain name) in this fashion and have never seen a request outside my ip's in an access log - and I don't have it restricted to my ip's only.

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Aug 2008
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    285
    Distro
    Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx

    Re: Apache vhosts - security through obscurity

    While that works.. you could just use a .htaccess file and put in a username/password for your users

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