Ensure that Google Cloud VPC network firewall rules do not allow unrestricted access (i.e. 0.0.0.0/0) on TCP port 135 in order to efficiently reduce the attack surface and protect the virtual machine (VM) instances targeted by these firewall rules. Remote Procedure Call (RPC) TCP port 135 is used for client-server communications managed by Microsoft Message Queuing (MSMQ) and other Microsoft Windows software solutions.
Allowing unrestricted ingress/inbound access on TCP port 135 (RPC) through VPC network firewall rules can increase opportunities for malicious activities such as hacking (e.g. backdoor command shell), ransomware attacks, and Denial-of-Service (DoS) attacks. VPC firewall rules should be configured so that access to specific resources is restricted to just those hosts or networks that have a legitimate requirement for access.
Audit
To determine if your Google Cloud VPC firewall rules allow unrestricted access on TCP port 135, perform the following actions:
Remediation / Resolution
To update your VPC network firewall rules configuration in order to restrict Remote Procedure Call (RPC) access to trusted entities only (i.e. authorized IP addresses or IP ranges), perform the following actions:
References
- Google Cloud Platform (GCP) Documentation
- VPC network overview
- Using VPC networks
- VPC firewall rules overview
- Using firewall rules
- GCP Command Line Interface (CLI) Documentation
- gcloud projects list
- gcloud compute networks list
- gcloud compute firewall-rules list
- gcloud compute firewall-rules update