GEN:SID 1:330
Message FINGER redirection attempt
Summary This is an intelligence gathering activity. This event is indicative of a connection laundering attack against the finger daemon
Impact The attacker may obtain information about a third party host without making a direct connection to that host.
Detailed Information The event is generated when an attempt to use a machine to run
finger queries against a third party UNIX system is attempted.

The attack utilizes "finger forwarding" functionality, normally used to forward queries to a third party machine. The information is obtained without a direct connection to the said third party, since the target system performs a connection to the third party host for the attacker.

The Finger daemon is used to provide information about users on a UNIX system. It used to be installed and enabled by default on most UNIX/Linux systems. The attack if successful, will confirm that the target host will try to forward queries.
Affected Systems  
Attack Scenarios An attacker runs a finger query and obtains information about the root account. He then proceeds to compromise the system using the obtained data as a basis for the compromise.
Ease of Attack Simple, no exploit software required
Corrective Action Disable the finger daemon or upgrade to a daemon without finger forwarding functionality

Additional References Nessus:
http://cgi.nessus.org/plugins/dump.php3?id=10073

CVE:
http://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CAN-1999-0105

Arachnids:
http://www.whitehats.com/info/IDS251
Rule References arachnids: 251
cve: 1999-0105
nessus: 10073