Call the plumber: You have a leak in your named pipe

Named Pipe Interface

Many security professionals are unfamiliar with the Windows named pipes interface or consider it internal-only. Open RPC (135) and SMB (445) ports are typically considered infrastructure penetration test entry points.

Application-Level Attack Surface

Named pipes can be used as application-level entry vectors for well-known attacks including buffer overflows, denial of service, and code injection attacks. XML bombs represent another attack class depending on listening service implementation.

Enterprise Application Exposure

Popular and widely-used Microsoft Windows enterprise applications open numerous named pipes on each endpoint or server. This significantly increases attack surface without organizational awareness. Limited mitigation options exist due to complete lack of awareness.

Discovery and Exploitation

The presentation highlights named pipes as a neglected external interface. Tools for finding vulnerable named pipes are demonstrated, along with mitigation strategies and exploitation processes on vulnerable applications, making named pipes an attractive target for sophisticated attackers.