Internet Relay Chat Probe (IRCP)

TRIPLE 6 SEVEN OCULOUS

A robust information gathering tool for large scale reconnaissance on Internet Relay Chat servers, made for future usage with internetrelaychat.org for public statistics on the protocol.

Meant to be used in combination with masscan checking 0.0.0.0/0 (the entire IPv4 range) for port 6667.

The idea is to create a proof-of-concept documenting how large-scale information gathering on the IRC protocol can be malicious & invasive to privacy.

Order of Operations

First, an attempt to connect using SSL/TLS on port 6697 is made, which will fall back to a standard connection on port 6667 if it fails. The RPL_ISUPPORT (005) response is checked for the SSL= option to try & locate secure ports.

Once connected, server information is gathered from ADMIN, CAP LS, MODULES -all, VERSION, IRCOPS, MAP, INFO, LINKS, STATS p, & LIST replies. An attempt to register a nickname is then made by trying to contact NickServ.

Lastly, every channel is joined with a WHO command sent & every new nick found gets a WHOIS sent.

Once we have finishing scanning a server, the information found is saved to a JSON file. The data in the logs are stored in categories based on numerics (001 is RPL_WELCOME, 322 is RPL_LIST, etc) & events (JOIN, MODE, KILL, etc).

Everything is done in a carefully throttled manner for stealth to avoid detection. An extensive amount research on IRC daemons, services, & common practices used by network administrators was done & has fine tuned this project to be able to evade common triggers that thwart what we are doing.

Opt-out

The IRC networks we scanned are PUBLIC networks...any person can freely connect & parse the same information. Send your hate mail to scan@internetrelaychat.org

Config

Settings

Setting	Default Value	Description
errors	True	Show errors in console
errors_conn	False	Show connection errors in console
log_max	5000000	Maximum log size (in bytes) before starting another
nickname	"IRCP"	IRC nickname (None = random)
username	"ircp"	IRC username (None = random)
realname	"internetrelaychat.org"	IRC realname (None = random)
ns_mail	"scan@internetrelaychat.org"	NickServ email address (None = random)
ns_pass	"changeme"	NickServ password (None = random)
vhost	None	Bind to a specific IP address

Throttle

Setting	Default Value	Description
channels	3	Maximum number of channels to scan at once
delay	300	Delay before registering nick (if enabled) & sending LIST
join	10	Delay between channel JOIN
nick	300	Delay between every random NICK change
part	10	Delay before PART from channel
seconds	300	Maximum seconds to wait when throttled for JOIN
threads	100	Maximum number of threads running
timeout	30	Timeout for all sockets
whois	5	Delay between WHOIS requests
ztimeout	200	Timeout for zero data from server

Preview

Threat Scope

While IRC is an generally unfavored chat protocol as of 2023 (roughly 7,000 networks), it still has a beating heart *(over 300,000 users & channels) with potential for user growth & active development being done on IRCv3 protocol implementations.

Point is..it's is not going anywhere. With that being said, every network being on the same port leads way for a lot of potential threats:

• A new RCE is found for a very common IRC bot
• A new 0day is found for a certain IRCd version
• Old IRC daemons running versions with known CVE's
• Tracing users network/channel whereabouts
• Mass spamming attacks on every network

Mass scanning default ports of services is nothing new & though port 6667 is not a common target, running an IRCd on a non-standard port should be the standard. If we have learned anything in the last 10 years, using standard ports for anything is almost always smells like a bad idea.

Todo

• Built in identd
• Checking for IPv6 availability (SSL= in 005 responses may help verify IPv6)
• Support for IRC servers using old versions of SSL
• Create a seperate log for failed connections (Sync to file every hour maybe)
• Ability to link multiple IRCP instances running in daemon mode together for balancing
• Remote syncing the logs to another server
• Support for handling a target list that contains host:port:ssl for networks on non-standard ports
• Give props to bwall for giving me the idea with his ircsnapshot repository
• Confirm nick registered (most likely through MODE +r)

Mirrors

• acid.vegas
• GitHub
• GitLab
• SuperNETs