Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) É. Vyncke
Request for Comments: 9099 Cisco
Category: Informational K. Chittimaneni
ISSN: 2070-1721
M. Kaeo
Double Shot Security
E. Rey
ERNW
August 2021
Operational Security Considerations for IPv6 Networks
Abstract
Knowledge and experience on how to operate IPv4 networks securely is
available, whether the operator is an Internet Service Provider (ISP)
or an enterprise internal network. However, IPv6 presents some new
security challenges. RFC 4942 describes security issues in the
protocol, but network managers also need a more practical,
operations-minded document to enumerate advantages and/or
disadvantages of certain choices.
This document analyzes the operational security issues associated
with several types of networks and proposes technical and procedural
mitigation techniques. This document is only applicable to managed
networks, such as enterprise networks, service provider networks, or
managed residential networks.
Status of This Memo
This document is not an Internet Standards Track specification; it is
published for informational purposes.
This document is a product of the Internet Engineering Task Force
(IETF). It represents the consensus of the IETF community. It has
received public review and has been approved for publication by the
Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG). Not all documents
approved by the IESG are candidates for any level of Internet
Standard; see Section 2 of RFC 7841.
Information about the current status of this document, any errata,
and how to provide feedback on it may be obtained at
https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc9099.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2021 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
document authors. All rights reserved.
This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
Provisions Relating to IETF Documents
(https://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of
publication of this document. Please review these documents
carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect
to this document. Code Components extracted from this document must
include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of
the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as
described in the Simplified BSD License.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction
1.1. Applicability Statement
1.2. Requirements Language
2. Generic Security Considerations
2.1. Addressing
2.1.1. Use of ULAs
2.1.2. Point-to-Point Links
2.1.3. Loopback Addresses
2.1.4. Stable Addresses
2.1.5. Temporary Addresses for SLAAC
2.1.6. DHCP Considerations
2.1.7. DNS Considerations
2.1.8. Using a /64 per Host
2.1.9. Privacy Consideration of Addresses
2.2. Extension Headers
2.2.1. Order and Repetition of Extension Headers
2.2.2. Hop-by-Hop Options Header
2.2.3. Fragment Header
2.2.4. IP Security Extension Header
2.3. Link-Layer Security
2.3.1. Neighbor Solicitation Rate-Limiting
2.3.2. Router and Neighbor Advertisements Filtering
2.3.3. Securing DHCP
2.3.4. 3GPP Link-Layer Security
2.3.5. Impact of Multicast Traffic
2.3.6. SEND and CGA
2.4. Control Plane Security
2.4.1. Control Protocols
2.4.2. Management Protocols
2.4.3. Packet Exceptions
2.5. Routing Security
2.5.1. BGP Security
2.5.2. Authenticating OSPFv3 Neighbors
2.5.3. Securing Routing Updates
2.5.4. Route Filtering
2.6. Logging/Monitoring
2.6.1. Data Sources
2.6.2. Use of Collected Data
2.6.3. Summary
2.7. Transition/Coexistence Technologies
2.7.1. Dual Stack
2.7.2. Encapsulation Mechanisms
2.7.3. Translation Mechanisms
2.8. General Device Hardening
3. Enterprises-Specific Security Considerations
3.1. External Security Considerations
3.2. Internal Security Considerations
4. Service Provider Security Considerations
4.1. BGP
4.1.1. Remote Triggered Black Hole Filtering
4.2. Transition/Coexistence Mechanism
4.3. Lawful Intercept
5. Residential Users Security Considerations
6. Further Reading
7. Security Considerations
8. IANA Considerations
9. References
9.1. Normative References
9.2. Informative References
Acknowledgements
Authors' Addresses
1. Introduction
Running an IPv6 network is new for most operators not only because
they are not yet used to large-scale IPv6 networks but also because
there are subtle but critical and important differences between IPv4
and IPv6, especially with respect to security. For example, all
Layer 2 (L2) interactions are now done using the Neighbor Discovery
Protocol (NDP) [RFC4861] rather than the Address Resolution Protocol
[RFC0826]. Also, there is no Network Address Port Translation (NAPT)
defined in [RFC2663] for IPv6 even if [RFC6296] specifies an IPv6-to-
IPv6 Network Prefix Translation (NPTv6), which is a 1-to-1 mapping of
IPv6 addresses. Another important difference is that IPv6 is
extensible with the use of extension headers.
IPv6 networks are deployed using a variety of techniques, each of
which have their own specific security concerns.
This document complements [RFC4942] by listing security issues when
operating a network (including various transition technologies). It
also provides operational deployment experiences where warranted.
1.1. Applicability Statement
This document is applicable to managed networks, i.e., when the
network is operated by the user organization itself. Indeed, many of
the recommended mitigation techniques must be configured with
detailed knowledge of the network (which are the default routers, the
switch trunk ports, etc.). This covers Service Providers (SPs),
enterprise networks, and some knowledgeable home-user-managed
residential networks. This applicability statement especially
applies to Sections 2.3 and 2.5.4.
1.2. Requirements Language
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
"SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "NOT RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and
"OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in
BCP 14 [RFC2119] [RFC8174] when, and only when, they appear in all
capitals, as shown here.
2. Generic Security Considerations
2.1. Addressing
IPv6 address allocations and overall architecture are important parts
of securing IPv6. Initial designs, even if intended to be temporary,
tend to last much longer than expected. Although IPv6 was initially
thought to make renumbering easy, in practice, it may be extremely
difficult to renumber without a proper IP Address Management (IPAM)
system. [RFC7010] introduces the mechanisms that could be utilized
for IPv6 site renumbering and tries to cover most of the explicit
issues and requirements associated with IPv6 renumbering.
A key task for a successful IPv6 deployment is to prepare an
addressing plan. Because an abundance of address space is available,
structuring an address plan around both services and geographic
locations allows address space to become a basis for more structured
security policies to permit or deny services between geographic
regions. [RFC6177] documents some operational considerations of
using different prefix sizes for address assignments at end sites.
A common question is whether companies should use Provider-
Independent (PI) or Provider-Aggregated (PA) space [RFC7381], but,
from a security perspective, there is little difference. However,
one aspect to keep in mind is who has administrative ownership of the
address space and who is technically responsible if/when there is a
need to enforce restrictions on routability of the space, e.g., due
to malicious criminal activity originating from it. Relying on PA
address space may also increase the perceived need for address
translation techniques, such as NPTv6; thereby, the complexity of the
operations, including the security operations, is augmented.
In [RFC7934], it is recommended that IPv6 network deployments provide
multiple IPv6 addresses from each prefix to general-purpose hosts,
and it specifically does not recommend limiting a host to only one
IPv6 address per prefix. It also recommends that the network give
the host the ability to use new addresses without requiring explicit
requests (for example, by using Stateless Address Autoconfiguration
(SLAAC)). Privacy extensions, as of [RFC8981], constitute one of the
main scenarios where hosts are expected to generate multiple
addresses from the same prefix, and having multiple IPv6 addresses
per interface is a major change compared to the unique IPv4 address
per interface for hosts (secondary IPv4 addresses are not common),
especially for audits (see Section 2.6.2.3).
2.1.1. Use of ULAs
Unique Local Addresses (ULAs) [RFC4193] are intended for scenarios
where interfaces are not globally reachable, despite being routed
within a domain. They formally have global scope, but [RFC4193]
specifies that they must be filtered at domain boundaries. ULAs are
different from the addresses described in [RFC1918] and have
different use cases. One use of ULAs is described in [RFC4864];
another one is for internal communication stability in networks where
external connectivity may come and go (e.g., some ISPs provide ULAs
in home networks connected via a cable modem). It should further be
kept in mind that ULA /48s from the fd00::/8 space (L=1) MUST be
generated with a pseudorandom algorithm, per Section 3.2.1 of
[RFC4193].
2.1.2. Point-to-Point Links
Section 5.1 of [RFC6164] specifies the rationale of using /127 for
inter-router, point-to-point links to prevent the ping-pong issue
between routers not correctly implementing [RFC4443], and it also
prevents a denial-of-service (DoS) attack on the Neighbor Cache. The
previous recommendation of [RFC3627] has been obsoleted and marked
Historic by [RFC6547].
Some environments are also using link-local addressing for point-to-
point links. While this practice could further reduce the attack
surface of infrastructure devices, the operational disadvantages also
need to be carefully considered; see [RFC7404].
2.1.3. Loopback Addresses
Many operators reserve a /64 block for all loopback addresses in
their infrastructure and allocate a /128 out of this reserved /64
prefix for each loopback interface. This practice facilitates
configuration of Access Control List (ACL) rules to enforce a
security policy for those loopback addresses.
2.1.4. Stable Addresses
When considering how to assign stable addresses for nodes (either by
static configuration or by pre-provisioned DHCPv6 lease
(Section 2.1.6)), it is necessary to take into consideration the
effectiveness of perimeter security in a given environment.
There is a trade-off between ease of operation (where some portions
of the IPv6 address could be easily recognizable for operational
debugging and troubleshooting) versus the risk of trivial scanning
used for reconnaissance. [SCANNING] shows that there are
scientifically based mechanisms that make scanning for IPv6-reachable
nodes more feasible than expected; see [RFC7707].
Stable addresses also allow easy enforcement of a security policy at
the perimeter based on IPv6 addresses. For example, Manufacturer
Usage Description (MUD) [RFC8520] is a mechanism where the perimeter
defense can retrieve the security policy template based on the type
of internal device and apply the right security policy based on the
device's IPv6 address.
The use of well-known IPv6 addresses (such as ff02::1 for all link-
local nodes) or the use of commonly repeated addresses could make it
easy to figure out which devices are name servers, routers, or other
critical devices; even a simple traceroute will expose most of the
routers on a path. There are many scanning techniques possible and
operators should not rely on the 'impossible to find because my
address is random' paradigm (a.k.a. "security by obscurity") even if
it is common practice to have the stable addresses randomly
distributed across /64 subnets and to always use DNS (as IPv6
addresses are hard for human brains to remember).
While, in some environments, obfuscating addresses could be
considered an added benefit, it should not preclude enforcement of
perimeter rules. Stable addresses following some logical allocation
scheme may ease the operation (as simplicity always helps security).
Typical deployments will have a mix of stable and non-stable
addresses; the stable addresses being either predictable (e.g., ::25
for a mail server) or obfuscated (i.e., appearing as a random 64-bit
number).
2.1.5. Temporary Addresses for SLAAC
Historically, Stateless Address Autoconfiguration (SLAAC) makes up
the globally unique IPv6 address based on an automatically generated
64-bit interface identifier (IID) based on the 64-bit Extended Unique
Identifier (EUI-64) Media Access Control (MAC) address combined with
the /64 prefix (received in the Prefix Information Option (PIO) of
the Router Advertisement (RA)). The EUI-64 address is generated from
the stable 48-bit MAC address and does not change even if the host
moves to another network; this is of course bad for privacy, as a
host can be traced from network (home) to network (office or Wi-Fi in
hotels). [RFC8064] recommends against the use of EUI-64 addresses,
and it must be noted that most host operating systems do not use
EUI-64 addresses anymore and rely on either [RFC8981] or [RFC8064].
Randomly generating an interface ID, as described in [RFC8981], is
part of SLAAC with so-called privacy extension addresses and is used
to address some privacy concerns. Privacy extension addresses,
a.k.a. temporary addresses, may help to mitigate the correlation of
activities of a node within the same network and may also reduce the
attack exposure window. But using privacy extension addresses as
described in [RFC8981] might prevent the operator from building host-
specific access control lists (ACLs). These privacy extension
addresses could also be used to obfuscate some malevolent activities,
and specific user attribution/accountability procedures should be put
in place, as described in Section 2.6.
[RFC8064] combined with the address generation mechanism of [RFC7217]
specifies another way to generate an address while still keeping the
same IID for each network prefix; this allows SLAAC nodes to always
have the same stable IPv6 address on a specific network while having
different IPv6 addresses on different networks.
In some specific use cases where user accountability is more
important than user privacy, network operators may consider disabling
SLAAC and relying only on DHCPv6; however, not all operating systems
support DHCPv6, so some hosts will not get any IPv6 connectivity.
Disabling SLAAC and privacy extension addresses can be done for most
operating systems by sending RA messages with a hint to get addresses
via DHCPv6 by setting the M-bit and disabling SLAAC by resetting all
A-bits in all PIOs. However, attackers could still find ways to
bypass this mechanism if it is not enforced at the switch/router
level.
However, in scenarios where anonymity is a strong desire (protecting
user privacy is more important than user attribution), privacy
extension addresses should be used. When mechanisms recommended by
[RFC8064] are available, the stable privacy address is probably a
good balance between privacy (among different networks) and security/
user attribution (within a network).
2.1.6. DHCP Considerations
Some environments use DHCPv6 to provision addresses and other
parameters in order to ensure auditability and traceability (see
Section 2.6.1.5 for the limitations of DHCPv6 for auditability).
A main security concern is the ability to detect and counteract rogue
DHCP servers (Section 2.3.3). It must be noted that, as opposed to
DHCPv4, DHCPv6 can lease several IPv6 addresses per client. For
DHCPv4, the lease is bound to the 'client identifier', which may
contain a hardware address or another type of identifier, such as a
DNS name. For DHCPv6, the lease is bound to the client DHCP Unique
Identifier (DUID), which may or may not be bound to the client L2
address. [RFC7824] describes the privacy issues associated with the
use of DHCPv6 by Internet users. The anonymity profiles [RFC7844]
are designed for clients that wish to remain anonymous to the visited
network. [RFC7707] recommends that DHCPv6 servers issue addresses
randomly from a large pool.
2.1.7. DNS Considerations
While the security concerns of DNS are not fundamentally different
between IPv4 and IPv6, there are specific considerations in DNS64
[RFC6147] environments that need to be understood. Specifically, the
interactions and the potential of interference with DNSSEC [RFC4033]
implementation need to be understood -- these are pointed out in more
detail in Section 2.7.3.2.
2.1.8. Using a /64 per Host
An interesting approach is using a /64 per host, as proposed in
[RFC8273], especially in a shared environment. This allows for
easier user attribution (typically based on the host MAC address), as
its /64 prefix is stable, even if applications within the host can
change their IPv6 address within this /64 prefix.
This can also be useful for the generation of ACLs once individual
systems (e.g., admin workstations) have their own prefixes.
2.1.9. Privacy Consideration of Addresses
In addition to the security aspects of IPv6 addresses, there are also
privacy considerations: mainly because they are of global scope and
visible globally. [RFC7721] goes into more detail on the privacy
considerations for IPv6 addresses by comparing the manually
configured IPv6 address, DHCPv6, and SLAAC.
2.2. Extension Headers
Extension headers are an important difference between IPv4 and IPv6.
In IPv4-based packets, it's trivial to find the upper-layer protocol
type and protocol header, while, in IPv6, it is more complex since
the extension header chain must be parsed completely (even if not
processed) in order to find the upper-layer protocol header. IANA
has closed the existing empty "Next Header Types" registry to new
entries and is redirecting its users to the "IPv6 Extension Header
Types" registry, per [RFC7045].
Extension headers have also become a very controversial topic since
forwarding nodes that discard packets containing extension headers
are known to cause connectivity failures and deployment problems
[RFC7872]. Understanding the role of various extension headers is
important, and this section enumerates the ones that need careful
consideration.
A clarification on how intermediate nodes should handle packets with
existing or future extension headers is found in [RFC7045]. The
uniform TLV format to be used for defining future extension headers
is described in [RFC6564]. Sections 5.2 and 5.3 of [RFC8504] provide
more information on the processing of extension headers by IPv6
nodes.
Vendors of filtering solutions and operations personnel responsible
for implementing packet filtering rules should be aware that the
'Next Header' field in an IPv6 header can both point to an IPv6
extension header or to an upper-layer protocol header. This has to
be considered when designing the user interface of filtering
solutions or during the creation of filtering rule sets.
[IPV6-EH-FILTERING] discusses filtering rules for those extension
headers at transit routers.
2.2.1. Order and Repetition of Extension Headers
While [RFC8200] recommends the order and the maximum repetition of
extension headers, at the time of writing, there are still IPv6
implementations that support an order of headers that is not
recommended (such as Encapsulating Security Payload (ESP) before
routing) or an illegal repetition of headers (such as multiple
routing headers). The same applies for options contained in the
extension headers (see [IPV6-EH-PARSING]). In some cases, it has led
to nodes crashing when receiving or forwarding wrongly formatted
packets.
A firewall or edge device should be used to enforce the recommended
order and the maximum occurrences of extension headers by dropping
nonconforming packets.
2.2.2. Hop-by-Hop Options Header
In the previous IPv6 specification [RFC2460], the hop-by-hop options
header, when present in an IPv6 packet, forced all nodes to inspect
and possibly process this header. This enabled denial-of-service
attacks as most, if not all, routers cannot process this type of
packet in hardware; they have to process these packets in software
and, hence, this task competes with other software tasks, such as
handling the control and management plane processing.
Section 4.3 of [RFC8200], the current Internet Standard for IPv6, has
taken this attack vector into account and made the processing of hop-
by-hop options headers by intermediate routers explicitly
configurable.
2.2.3. Fragment Header
The fragment header is used by the source (and only the source) when
it has to fragment packets. [RFC7112] and Section 4.5 of [RFC8200]
explain why it is important that:
* Firewall and security devices should drop first fragments that do
not contain the entire IPv6 header chain (including the transport-
layer header).
* Destination nodes should discard first fragments that do not
contain the entire IPv6 header chain (including the transport-
layer header).
If those requirements are not met, stateless filtering could be
bypassed by a hostile party. [RFC6980] applies a stricter rule to
NDP by enforcing the drop of fragmented NDP packets (except for
"Certification Path Advertisement" messages, as noted in section
Section 2.3.2.1). [RFC7113] describes how the RA-Guard function
described in [RFC6105] should behave in the presence of fragmented RA
packets.
2.2.4. IP Security Extension Header
The IPsec [RFC4301] extension headers (Authentication Header (AH)
[RFC4302] and ESP [RFC4303]) are required if IPsec is to be utilized
for network-level security. Previously, IPv6 mandated implementation
of IPsec, but [RFC6434] updated that recommendation by making support
of the IPsec architecture [RFC4301] a 'SHOULD' for all IPv6 nodes
that are also retained in the latest IPv6 Nodes Requirement standard
[RFC8504].
2.3. Link-Layer Security
IPv6 relies heavily on NDP [RFC4861] to perform a variety of link
operations, such as discovering other nodes on the link, resolving
their link-layer addresses, and finding routers on the link. If not
secured, NDP is vulnerable to various attacks, such as router/
neighbor message spoofing, redirect attacks, Duplicate Address
Detection (DAD) DoS attacks, etc. Many of these security threats to
NDP have been documented in "IPv6 Neighbor Discovery (ND) Trust
Models and Threats" [RFC3756] and in "Operational Neighbor Discovery
Problems" [RFC6583].
Most of the issues are only applicable when the attacker is on the
same link, but NDP also has security issues when the attacker is off
link; see Section 2.3.1 below.
2.3.1. Neighbor Solicitation Rate-Limiting
NDP can be vulnerable to remote DoS attacks, for example, when a
router is forced to perform address resolution for a large number of
unassigned addresses, i.e., when a prefix is scanned by an attacker
in a fast manner. This can keep new devices from joining the network
or render the last-hop router ineffective due to high CPU usage.
Easy mitigative steps include rate limiting Neighbor Solicitations,
restricting the amount of state reserved for unresolved
solicitations, and cleverly managing the cache/timer.
[RFC6583] discusses the potential for off-link DoS in detail and
suggests implementation improvements and operational mitigation
techniques that may be used to mitigate or alleviate the impact of
such attacks. Here are some feasible mitigation options that can be
employed by network operators today:
* Ingress filtering of unused addresses by ACL. These require
stable configuration of the addresses, e.g., allocating the
addresses out of a /120 and using a specific ACL to only allow
traffic to this /120 (of course, the actual hosts are configured
with a /64 prefix for the link).
* Tuning of NDP process (where supported), e.g., enforcing limits on
data structures, such as the number of Neighbor Cache entries in
'incomplete' state (e.g., 256 incomplete entries per interface) or
the rate of NA per interface (e.g., 100 NA per second).
* Using a /127 on a point-to-point link, per [RFC6164].
* Using only link-local addresses on links where there are only
routers; see [RFC7404].
2.3.2. Router and Neighbor Advertisements Filtering
2.3.2.1. Router Advertisement Filtering
Router Advertisement spoofing is a well-known, on-link attack vector
and has been extensively documented. The presence of rogue RAs,
either unintentional or malicious, can cause partial or complete
failure of operation of hosts on an IPv6 link. For example, a node
can select an incorrect router address, which can then be used for an
on-path attack, or the node can assume wrong prefixes to be used for
SLAAC. [RFC6104] summarizes the scenarios in which rogue RAs may be
observed and presents a list of possible solutions to the problem.
[RFC6105] (RA-Guard) describes a solution framework for the rogue RA
problem where network segments are designed around switching devices
that are capable of identifying invalid RAs and blocking them before
the attack packets actually reach the target nodes.
However, several evasion techniques that circumvent the protection
provided by RA-Guard have surfaced. A key challenge to this
mitigation technique is introduced by IPv6 fragmentation. Attackers
can conceal their attack by fragmenting their packets into multiple
fragments such that the switching device that is responsible for
blocking invalid RAs cannot find all the necessary information to
perform packet filtering of the same packet. [RFC7113] describes
such evasion techniques and provides advice to RA-Guard implementers
such that the aforementioned evasion vectors can be eliminated.
Given that the IPv6 Fragmentation Header can be leveraged to
circumvent some implementations of RA-Guard, [RFC6980] updates
[RFC4861] such that use of the IPv6 Fragmentation Header is forbidden
in all Neighbor Discovery messages, except "Certification Path
Advertisement", thus allowing for simple and effective measures to
counter fragmented NDP attacks.
2.3.2.2. Neighbor Advertisement Filtering
The Source Address Validation Improvements (savi) Working Group has
worked on other ways to mitigate the effects of such attacks.
[RFC7513] helps in creating bindings between a source IP address
assigned to DHCPv4 [RFC2131] or DHCPv6 [RFC8415] and a binding anchor
[RFC7039] on a SAVI device. Also, [RFC6620] describes how to glean
similar bindings when DHCP is not used. The bindings can be used to
filter packets generated on the local link with forged source IP
addresses.
2.3.2.3. Host Isolation
Isolating hosts for the NDP traffic can be done by using a /64 per
host, refer to Section 2.1.8, as NDP is only relevant within a /64
on-link prefix; 3GPP (Section 2.3.4) uses a similar mechanism.
A more drastic technique to prevent all NDP attacks is based on
isolation of all hosts with specific configurations. In such a
scenario, hosts (i.e., all nodes that are not routers) are unable to
send data-link layer frames to other hosts; therefore, no host-to-
host attacks can happen. This specific setup can be established on
some switches or Wi-Fi access points. This is not always feasible
when hosts need to communicate with other hosts in the same subnet,
e.g., for access to file shares.
2.3.2.4. NDP Recommendations
It is still recommended that RA-Guard and SAVI be employed as a first
line of defense against common attack vectors, including
misconfigured hosts. This recommendation also applies when DHCPv6 is
used, as RA messages are used to discover the default router(s) and
for on-link prefix determination. This line of defense is most
effective when incomplete fragments are dropped by routers and L2
switches, as described in Section 2.2.3. The generated log should
also be analyzed to identify and act on violations.
Network operators should be aware that RA-Guard and SAVI do not work
as expected or could even be harmful in specific network
configurations (notably when there could be multiple routers).
Enabling RA-Guard by default in managed networks (e.g., Wi-Fi
networks, enterprise campus networks, etc.) should be strongly
considered except for specific use cases, such as in the presence of
homenet devices emitting router advertisements.
2.3.3. Securing DHCP
The Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol for IPv6 (DHCPv6), as
described in [RFC8415], enables DHCP servers to pass configuration
parameters, such as IPv6 network addresses and other configuration
information, to IPv6 nodes. DHCP plays an important role in most
large networks by providing robust stateful configuration in the
context of automated system provisioning.
The two most common threats to DHCP clients come from malicious
(a.k.a. rogue) or unintentionally misconfigured DHCP servers. In
these scenarios, a malicious DHCP server is established with the
intent of providing incorrect configuration information to the
clients to cause a denial-of-service attack or to mount an on-path
attack. While unintentional, a misconfigured DHCP server can have
the same impact. Additional threats against DHCP are discussed in
the security considerations section of [RFC8415].
DHCPv6-Shield [RFC7610] specifies a mechanism for protecting
connected DHCPv6 clients against rogue DHCPv6 servers. This
mechanism is based on DHCPv6 packet filtering at the L2 device, i.e.,
the administrator specifies the interfaces connected to DHCPv6
servers. However, extension headers could be leveraged to bypass
DHCPv6-Shield unless [RFC7112] is enforced.
It is recommended to use DHCPv6-Shield and to analyze the
corresponding log messages.
2.3.4. 3GPP Link-Layer Security
The 3GPP link is a point-to-point-like link that has no link-layer
address. This implies there can only be one end host (the mobile
handset) and the first-hop router (i.e., a Gateway GPRS Support Node
(GGSN) or a Packet Data Network Gateway (PGW)) on that link. The
GGSN/PGW never configures a non-link-local address on the link using
the advertised /64 prefix on it; see Section 2.1.8. The advertised
prefix must not be used for on-link determination. There is no need
for address resolution on the 3GPP link, since there are no link-
layer addresses. Furthermore, the GGSN/PGW assigns a prefix that is
unique within each 3GPP link that uses IPv6 Stateless Address
Autoconfiguration. This avoids the necessity to perform DAD at the
network level for every address generated by the mobile host. The
GGSN/PGW always provides an IID to the cellular host for the purpose
of configuring the link-local address and ensures the uniqueness of
the IID on the link (i.e., no collisions between its own link-local
address and the mobile host's address).
The 3GPP link model itself mitigates most of the known NDP-related
DoS attacks. In practice, the GGSN/PGW only needs to route all
traffic to the mobile host that falls under the prefix assigned to
it. As there is also a single host on the 3GPP link, there is no
need to defend that IPv6 address.
See Section 5 of [RFC6459] for a more detailed discussion on the 3GPP
link model, NDP, and the address configuration details. In some
mobile networks, DHCPv6 and DHCP Prefix Delegation (DHCP-PD) are also
used.
2.3.5. Impact of Multicast Traffic
IPv6 uses multicast extensively for signaling messages on the local
link to avoid broadcast messages for on-the-wire efficiency.
The use of multicast has some side effects on wireless networks, such
as a negative impact on battery life of smartphones and other
battery-operated devices that are connected to such networks.
[RFC7772] and [RFC6775] (for specific wireless networks) discuss
methods to rate-limit RAs and other ND messages on wireless networks
in order to address this issue.
The use of link-layer multicast addresses (e.g., ff02::1 for the all
nodes link-local multicast address) could also be misused for an
amplification attack. Imagine a hostile node sending an ICMPv6
ECHO_REQUEST to ff02::1 with a spoofed source address, then all link-
local nodes will reply with ICMPv6 ECHO_REPLY packets to the source
address. This could be a DoS attack for the address owner. This
attack is purely local to the L2 network, as packets with a link-
local destination are never forwarded by an IPv6 router.
This is the reason why large Wi-Fi network deployments often limit
the use of link-layer multicast, either from or to the uplink of the
Wi-Fi access point, i.e., Wi-Fi stations are prevented to send link-
local multicast to their direct neighboring Wi-Fi stations; this
policy also blocks service discovery via Multicast DNS (mDNS)
[RFC6762] and Link-Local Multicast Name Resolution (LLMNR) [RFC4795].
2.3.6. SEND and CGA
SEcure Neighbor Discovery (SEND), as described in [RFC3971], is a
mechanism that was designed to secure ND messages. This approach
involves the use of new NDP options to carry public-key-based
signatures. Cryptographically Generated Addresses (CGA), as
described in [RFC3972], are used to ensure that the sender of a
Neighbor Discovery message is the actual "owner" of the claimed IPv6
address. A new NDP option, the CGA option, was introduced and is
used to carry the public key and associated parameters. Another NDP
option, the RSA Signature option, is used to protect all messages
relating to neighbor and router discovery.
SEND protects against:
* Neighbor Solicitation/Advertisement Spoofing
* Neighbor Unreachability Detection Failure
* Duplicate Address Detection DoS Attack
* Router Solicitation and Advertisement Attacks
* Replay Attacks
* Neighbor Discovery DoS Attacks
SEND does NOT:
* protect statically configured addresses
* protect addresses configured using fixed identifiers (i.e., EUI-
64)
* provide confidentiality for NDP communications
* compensate for an unsecured link -- SEND does not require that the
addresses on the link and Neighbor Advertisements correspond
However, at this time and over a decade since their original
specifications, CGA and SEND do not have support from widely deployed
IPv6 devices; hence, their usefulness is limited and should not be
relied upon.
2.4. Control Plane Security
[RFC6192] defines the router control plane and provides detailed
guidance to secure it for IPv4 and IPv6 networks. This definition is
repeated here for the reader's convenience. Please note that the
definition is completely protocol-version agnostic (most of this
section applies to IPv6 in the same way as to IPv4).
| Preamble: IPv6 control plane security is vastly congruent with
| its IPv4 equivalent, with the exception of OSPFv3
| authentication (Section 2.4.1) and some packet exceptions (see
| Section 2.4.3) that are specific to IPv6.
Modern router architecture design maintains a strict separation of
forwarding and router control plane hardware and software. The
router control plane supports routing and management functions. It
is generally described as the router architecture hardware and
software components for handling packets destined to the device
itself as well as building and sending packets originated locally on
the device. The forwarding plane is typically described as the
router architecture hardware and software components responsible for
receiving a packet on an incoming interface, performing a lookup to
identify the packet's IP next hop and best outgoing interface towards
the destination, and forwarding the packet through the appropriate
outgoing interface.
While the forwarding plane is usually implemented in high-speed
hardware, the control plane is implemented by a generic processor
(referred to as the routing processor (RP)) and cannot process
packets at a high rate. Hence, this processor can be attacked by
flooding its input queue with more packets than it can process. The
control plane processor is then unable to process valid control
packets and the router can lose IGP or BGP adjacencies, which can
cause a severe network disruption.
[RFC6192] provides detailed guidance to protect the router control
plane in IPv6 networks. The rest of this section contains simplified
guidance.
The mitigation techniques are:
* to drop illegitimate or potentially harmful control packets before
they are queued to the RP (this can be done by a forwarding plane
ACL) and
* to rate-limit the remaining packets to a rate that the RP can
sustain. Protocol-specific protection should also be done (for
example, a spoofed OSPFv3 packet could trigger the execution of
the Dijkstra algorithm; therefore, the frequency of Dijkstra
calculations should also be rate limited).
This section will consider several classes of control packets:
Control protocols:
routing protocols, such as OSPFv3, BGP, Routing Information
Protocol Next Generation (RIPng), and, by extension, NDP and ICMP
Management protocols:
Secure Shell (SSH), SNMP, Network Configuration Protocol
(NETCONF), RESTCONF, IP Flow Information Export (IPFIX), etc.
Packet exceptions:
normal data packets that require a specific processing, such as
generating a packet-too-big ICMP message or processing the hop-by-
hop options header
2.4.1. Control Protocols
This class includes OSPFv3, BGP, NDP, and ICMP.
An ingress ACL to be applied on all the router interfaces for packets
to be processed by the RP should be configured to:
* drop OSPFv3 (identified by Next-Header being 89) and RIPng
(identified by UDP port 521) packets from a non-link-local address
(except for OSPFv3 virtual links)
* allow BGP (identified by TCP port 179) packets from all BGP
neighbors and drop the others
* allow all ICMP packets (transit and to the router interfaces)
| Note: Dropping OSPFv3 packets that are authenticated by IPsec
| could be impossible on some routers that are unable to parse
| the IPsec ESP or AH extension headers during ACL
| classification.
Rate-limiting of the valid packets should be done; see [RFC8541] for
a side benefit for OSPv3. The exact configuration will depend on the
available resources of the router (CPU, Ternary Content-Addressable
Memory (TCAM), etc.).
2.4.2. Management Protocols
This class includes SSH, SNMP, RESTCONF, NETCONF, gRPC Remote
Procedure Calls (gRPC), syslog, NTP, etc.
An ingress ACL to be applied on all the router interfaces (or at
ingress interfaces of the security perimeter or by using specific
features of the platform) should be configured for packets destined
to the RP, such as:
* drop packets destined to the routers, except those belonging to
protocols that are used (for example, permit TCP 22 and drop all
others when only SSH is used) and
* drop packets where the source does not match the security policy
(for example, if SSH connections should only be originated from
the Network Operation Center (NOC), then the ACL should permit TCP
port 22 packets only from the NOC prefix).
Rate-limiting of valid packets should be done. The exact
configuration will depend on the available router resources.
2.4.3. Packet Exceptions
This class covers multiple cases where a data plane packet is punted
to the route processor because it requires specific processing:
* generation of an ICMP packet-too-big message when a data plane
packet cannot be forwarded because it is too large (required to
discover the Path MTU);
* generation of an ICMP hop-limit-expired message when a data plane
packet cannot be forwarded because its hop-limit field has reached
0 (also used by the traceroute utility);
* generation of an ICMP destination-unreachable message when a data
plane packet cannot be forwarded for any reason;
* processing of the hop-by-hop options header; new implementations
follow Section 4.3 of [RFC8200] where this processing is optional;
or
* more specific to some router implementations, an oversized
extension header chain that cannot be processed by the hardware
and cannot force the packet to be punted to the RP.
On some routers, not everything can be done by the specialized data
plane hardware that requires some packets to be 'punted' to the
generic RP. This could include, for example, the processing of a
long extension header chain in order to apply an ACL based on Layer 4
information. [RFC6980] and more generally [RFC7112] highlight the
security implications of oversized extension header chains on routers
and update the original IPv6 specifications [RFC2460] such that the
first fragment of a packet is required to contain the entire IPv6
header chain. Those changes are incorporated in the IPv6 standard
[RFC8200].
An ingress ACL cannot mitigate a control plane attack using these
packet exceptions. The only protection for the RP is to rate-limit
those packet exceptions that are forwarded to the RP. This means
that some data plane packets will be dropped without an ICMP message
sent to the source, which may delay Path MTU Discovery and cause
drops.
In addition to limiting the rate of data plane packets queued to the
RP, it is also important to rate-limit the generation of ICMP
messages. This is important both to preserve RP resources and also
to prevent an amplification attack using the router as a reflector.
It is worth noting that some platforms implement this rate-limiting
in hardware. Of course, a consequence of not generating an ICMP
message will break some IPv6 mechanisms, such as Path MTU Discovery
or a simple traceroute.
2.5. Routing Security
| Preamble: IPv6 routing security is congruent with IPv4 routing
| security, with the exception of OSPv3 neighbor authentication
| (see Section 2.5.2).
Routing security in general can be broadly divided into three
sections:
1. authenticating neighbors/peers
2. securing routing updates between peers
3. route filtering
[RFC5082] is also applicable to IPv6 and can ensure that routing
protocol packets are coming from the local network; it must also be
noted that in IPv6 all interior gateway protocols use link-local
addresses.
As for IPv4, it is recommended to enable a routing protocol only on
interfaces where it is required.
2.5.1. BGP Security
As BGP is identical for IPv4 and IPv6 and as [RFC7454] covers all the
security aspects for BGP in detail, [RFC7454] is also applicable to
IPv6.
2.5.2. Authenticating OSPFv3 Neighbors
OSPFv3 can rely on IPsec to fulfill the authentication function.
Operators should note that IPsec support is not standard on all
routing platforms. In some cases, this requires specialized hardware
that offloads crypto over to dedicated Application-Specific
Integrated Circuits (ASICs) or enhanced software images (both of
which often come with added financial cost) to provide such
functionality. An added detail is to determine whether OSPFv3 IPsec
implementations use AH or ESP-NULL for integrity protection. In
early implementations, all OSPFv3 IPsec configurations relied on AH
since the details weren't specified in [RFC5340]. However, the
document that specifically describes how IPsec should be implemented
for OSPFv3 [RFC4552] states that "implementations MUST support ESP[-
NULL] and MAY support AH" since it follows the overall IPsec
standards wording. OSPFv3 can also use normal ESP to encrypt the
OSPFv3 payload to provide confidentiality for the routing
information.
[RFC7166] changes OSPFv3 reliance on IPsec by appending an
authentication trailer to the end of the OSPFv3 packets. It does not
authenticate the specific originator of an OSPFv3 packet; rather, it
allows a router to confirm that the packet has been issued by a
router that had access to the shared authentication key.
With all authentication mechanisms, operators should confirm that
implementations can support rekeying mechanisms that do not cause
outages. There have been instances where any rekeying causes
outages; therefore, the trade-off between utilizing this
functionality needs to be weighed against the protection it provides.
[RFC4107] documents some guidelines for crypto keys management.
2.5.3. Securing Routing Updates
IPv6 initially mandated the provisioning of IPsec capability in all
nodes. However, in the updated IPv6 Nodes Requirement standard
[RFC8504], IPsec is a 'SHOULD' and not a 'MUST' implementation.
Theoretically, it is possible that all communication between two IPv6
nodes, especially routers exchanging routing information, is
encrypted using IPsec. However, in practice, deploying IPsec is not
always feasible given hardware and software limitations of the
various platforms deployed.
Many routing protocols support the use of cryptography to protect the
routing updates; the use of this protection is recommended.
[RFC8177] is a YANG data model for key chains that includes rekeying
functionality.
2.5.4. Route Filtering
Route filtering policies will be different depending on whether they
pertain to edge route filtering or internal route filtering. At a
minimum, the IPv6 routing policy, as it pertains to routing between
different administrative domains, should aim to maintain parity with
IPv4 from a policy perspective, for example:
* filter internal-use IPv6 addresses that are not globally routable
at the perimeter;
* discard routes for bogon [CYMRU] and reserved space (see
[RFC8190]); and
* configure ingress route filters that validate route origin, prefix
ownership, etc., through the use of various routing databases,
e.g., [RADB]. [RFC8210] formally validates the origin Autonomous
Systems (ASes) of BGP announcements.
Some good guidance can be found at [RFC7454].
A valid routing table can also be used to apply network ingress
filtering (see [RFC2827]).
2.6. Logging/Monitoring
In order to perform forensic research in the cases of a security
incident or detecting abnormal behavior, network operators should log
multiple pieces of information. In some cases, this requires a
frequent poll of devices via a Network Management Station.
This logging should include but is not limited to:
* logs of all applications using the network (including user space
and kernel space) when available (for example, web servers that
the network operator manages);
* data from IP Flow Information Export [RFC7011], also known as
IPFIX;
* data from various SNMP MIBs [RFC4293] or YANG data via RESTCONF
[RFC8040] or NETCONF [RFC6241];
* historical data of Neighbor Cache entries;
* stateful DHCPv6 [RFC8415] lease cache, especially when a relay
agent [RFC6221] is used;
* Source Address Validation Improvement (SAVI) [RFC7039] events,
especially the binding of an IPv6 address to a MAC address and a
specific switch or router interface;
* firewall ACL logs;
* authentication server logs; and
* RADIUS [RFC2866] accounting records.
Please note that there are privacy issues or regulations related to
how these logs are collected, stored, used, and safely discarded.
Operators are urged to check their country legislation (e.g., General
Data Protection Regulation [GDPR] in the European Union).
All those pieces of information can be used for:
* forensic (Section 2.6.2.1) investigations: who did what and when?
* correlation (Section 2.6.2.3): which IP addresses were used by a
specific node (assuming the use of privacy extensions addresses
[RFC8981])?
* inventory (Section 2.6.2.2): which IPv6 nodes are on my network?
* abnormal behavior detection (Section 2.6.2.4): unusual traffic
patterns are often the symptoms of an abnormal behavior, which is
in turn a potential attack (denial of service, network scan, a
node being part of a botnet, etc.).
2.6.1. Data Sources
This section lists the most important sources of data that are useful
for operational security.
2.6.1.1. Application Logs
Those logs are usually text files where the remote IPv6 address is
stored in cleartext (not binary). This can complicate the processing
since one IPv6 address, for example, 2001:db8::1, can be written in
multiple ways, such as:
* 2001:DB8::1 (in uppercase),
* 2001:0db8::0001 (with leading 0), and
* many other ways, including the reverse DNS mapping into a Fully
Qualified Domain Name (FQDN) (which should not be trusted).
[RFC5952] explains this problem in detail and recommends the use of a
single canonical format. This document recommends the use of
canonical format [RFC5952] for IPv6 addresses in all possible cases.
If the existing application cannot log using the canonical format,
then it is recommended to use an external post-processing program in
order to canonicalize all IPv6 addresses.
2.6.1.2. IP Flow Information Export by IPv6 Routers
IPFIX [RFC7012] defines some data elements that are useful for
security:
* nextHeaderIPv6, sourceIPv6Address, and destinationIPv6Address
* sourceMacAddress and destinationMacAddress
The IP version is the ipVersion element defined in [IANA-IPFIX].
Moreover, IPFIX is very efficient in terms of data handling and
transport. It can also aggregate flows by a key, such as
sourceMacAddress, in order to have aggregated data associated with a
specific sourceMacAddress. This memo recommends the use of IPFIX and
aggregation on nextHeaderIPv6, sourceIPv6Address, and
sourceMacAddress.
2.6.1.3. SNMP MIB and NETCONF/RESTCONF YANG Modules Data by IPv6
Routers
[RFC4293] defines a Management Information Base (MIB) for the two
address families of IP. This memo recommends the use of:
* ipIfStatsTable table, which collects traffic counters per
interface, and
* ipNetToPhysicalTable table, which is the content of the Neighbor
Cache, i.e., the mapping between IPv6 and data-link layer
addresses.
There are also YANG modules relating to the two IP address families
and that can be used with [RFC6241] and [RFC8040]. This memo
recommends the use of:
* interfaces-state/interface/statistics from
ietf-interfaces@2018-02-20.yang [RFC8343], which contains counters
for interfaces, and
* ipv6/neighbor from ietf-ip@2018-02-22.yang [RFC8344], which is the
content of the Neighbor Cache, i.e., the mapping between IPv6 and
data-link layer addresses.
2.6.1.4. Neighbor Cache of IPv6 Routers
The Neighbor Cache of routers contains all mappings between IPv6
addresses and data-link layer addresses. There are multiple ways to
collect the current entries in the Neighbor Cache, notably, but not
limited to:
* using the SNMP MIB (Section 2.6.1.3), as explained above;
* using streaming telemetry or NETCONF [RFC6241] and RESTCONF
[RFC8040] to collect the operational state of the Neighbor Cache;
and
* connecting over a secure management channel (such as SSH) and
explicitly requesting a Neighbor Cache dump via the Command-Line
Interface (CLI) or another monitoring mechanism.
The Neighbor Cache is highly dynamic, as mappings are added when a
new IPv6 address appears on the network. This could be quite
frequently with privacy extension addresses [RFC8981] or when they
are removed when the state goes from UNREACH to removed (the default
time for a removal per Neighbor Unreachability Detection [RFC4861]
algorithm is 38 seconds for a host using Windows 7). This means that
the content of the Neighbor Cache must be fetched periodically at an
interval that does not exhaust the router resources and still
provides valuable information (the suggested value is 30 seconds, but
this should be verified in the actual deployment) and stored for
later use.
This is an important source of information because it is trivial (on
a switch not using the SAVI [RFC7039] algorithm) to defeat the
mapping between data-link layer address and an IPv6 address. Put
another way, having access to the current and past content of the
Neighbor Cache has a paramount value for the forensic and audit
trails. It should also be noted that, in certain threat models, this
information is also deemed valuable and could itself be a target.
When using one /64 per host (Section 2.1.8) or DHCP-PD, it is
sufficient to keep the history of the allocated prefixes when
combined with strict source address prefix enforcement on the routers
and L2 switches to prevent IPv6 spoofing.
2.6.1.5. Stateful DHCPv6 Lease
In some networks, IPv6 addresses/prefixes are managed by a stateful
DHCPv6 server [RFC8415] that leases IPv6 addresses/prefixes to
clients. It is indeed quite similar to DHCP for IPv4, so it can be
tempting to use this DHCP lease file to discover the mapping between
IPv6 addresses/prefixes and data-link layer addresses, as is commonly
used in IPv4 networking.
It is not so easy in the IPv6 networks, because not all nodes will
use DHCPv6 (there are nodes that can only do stateless
autoconfiguration) and also because DHCPv6 clients are identified not
by their hardware-client address, as in IPv4, but by a DHCP Unique
Identifier (DUID). The DUID can have several formats: the data-link
layer address, the data-link layer address prepended with time
information, or even an opaque number that requires correlation with
another data source to be usable for operational security. Moreover,
when the DUID is based on the data-link address, this address can be
of any client interface (such as the wireless interface, while the
client actually uses its wired interface to connect to the network).
If a lightweight DHCP relay agent [RFC6221] is used in a L2 switch,
then the DHCP servers also receive the interface ID information,
which could be saved in order to identify the interface on which the
switch received a specific leased IPv6 address. Also, if a 'normal'
(not lightweight) relay agent adds the data-link layer address in the
option for Relay Agent Remote-ID [RFC4649] [RFC6939], then the DHCPv6
server can keep track of the data-link and leased IPv6 addresses.
In short, the DHCPv6 lease file is less interesting than lease files
for IPv4 networks. If possible, it is recommended to use DHCPv6
servers that keep the relayed data-link layer address in addition to
the DUID in the lease file, as those servers have the equivalent
information to IPv4 DHCP servers.
The mapping between the data-link layer address and the IPv6 address
can be secured by deploying switches implementing the SAVI [RFC7513]
mechanisms. Of course, this also requires that the data-link layer
address be protected by using a L2 mechanism, such as [IEEE-802.1X].
2.6.1.6. RADIUS Accounting Log
For interfaces where the user is authenticated via a RADIUS [RFC2866]
server, and if RADIUS accounting is enabled, then the RADIUS server
receives accounting Acct-Status-Type records at the start and at the
end of the connection, which include all IPv6 (and IPv4) addresses
used by the user. This technique can be used notably for Wi-Fi
networks with Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA) or other IEEE 802.1X
[IEEE-802.1X] wired interfaces on an Ethernet switch.
2.6.1.7. Other Data Sources
There are other data sources for log information that must be
collected (as currently collected in IPv4 networks):
* historical mappings of IPv6 addresses to users of remote access
VPN and
* historical mappings of MAC addresses to switch ports in a wired
network.
2.6.2. Use of Collected Data
This section leverages the data collected, as described in
Section 2.6.1, in order to achieve several security benefits.
Section 9.1 of [RFC7934] contains more details about host tracking.
2.6.2.1. Forensic and User Accountability
The forensic use case is when the network operator must locate an
IPv6 address (and the associated port, access point/switch, or VPN
tunnel) that was present in the network at a certain time or is
currently in the network.
To locate an IPv6 address in an enterprise network where the operator
has control over all resources, the source of information can be the
Neighbor Cache, or, if not found, the DHCP lease file. Then, the
procedure is:
1. based on the IPv6 prefix of the IPv6 address; find one or more
routers that are used to reach this prefix (assuming that anti-
spoofing mechanisms are used), perhaps based on an IPAM.
2. based on this limited set of routers, on the incident time, and
on the IPv6 address; retrieve the data-link address from the live
Neighbor Cache, from the historical Neighbor Cache data, or from
SAVI events, or retrieve the data-link address from the DHCP
lease file (Section 2.6.1.5).
3. based on the data-link layer address; look up the switch
interface associated with the data-link layer address. In the
case of wireless LAN with RADIUS accounting (see
Section 2.6.1.6), the RADIUS log has the mapping between the user
identification and the MAC address. If a Configuration
Management Database (CMDB) is used, then it can be used to map
the data-link layer address to a switch port.
At the end of the process, the interface of the host originating or
the subscriber identity associated with the activity in question has
been determined.
To identify the subscriber of an IPv6 address in a residential
Internet Service Provider, the starting point is the DHCP-PD leased
prefix covering the IPv6 address; this prefix can often be linked to
a subscriber via the RADIUS log. Alternatively, the Forwarding
Information Base (FIB) of the Cable Modem Termination System (CMTS)
or Broadband Network Gateway (BNG) indicates the Customer Premises
Equipment (CPE) of the subscriber and the RADIUS log can be used to
retrieve the actual subscriber.
More generally, a mix of the above techniques can be used in most, if
not all, networks.
2.6.2.2. Inventory
[RFC7707] describes the difficulties for an attacker to scan an IPv6
network due to the vast number of IPv6 addresses per link (and why in
some cases it can still be done). While the huge addressing space
can sometimes be perceived as a 'protection', it also makes the
inventory task difficult in an IPv6 network while it was trivial to
do in an IPv4 network (a simple enumeration of all IPv4 addresses,
followed by a ping and a TCP/UDP port scan). Getting an inventory of
all connected devices is of prime importance for a secure network
operation.
There are many ways to do an inventory of an IPv6 network.
The first technique is to use passive inspection, such as IPFIX.
Using exported IPFIX information and extracting the list of all IPv6
source addresses allows finding all IPv6 nodes that sent packets
through a router. This is very efficient but, alas, will not
discover silent nodes that never transmitted packets traversing the
IPFIX target router. Also, it must be noted that link-local
addresses will never be discovered by this means.
The second way is again to use the collected Neighbor Cache content
to find all IPv6 addresses in the cache. This process will also
discover all link-local addresses. See Section 2.6.1.4.
Another way that works only for a local network consists of sending
an ICMP ECHO_REQUEST to the link-local multicast address ff02::1,
which addresses all IPv6 nodes on the network. All nodes should
reply to this ECHO_REQUEST, per [RFC4443].
Other techniques involve obtaining data from DNS, parsing log files,
and leveraging service discovery, such as mDNS [RFC6762] [RFC6763].
Enumerating DNS zones, especially looking at reverse DNS records and
CNAMEs, is another common method employed by various tools. As
already mentioned in [RFC7707], this allows an attacker to prune the
IPv6 reverse DNS tree and hence enumerate it in a feasible time.
Furthermore, authoritative servers that allow zone transfers (i.e.,
Authoritative Transfers (AXFRs)) may be a further information source.
An interesting research paper has analyzed the entropy in various
IPv6 addresses: see [ENTROPYIP].
2.6.2.3. Correlation
In an IPv4 network, it is easy to correlate multiple logs, for
example, to find events related to a specific IPv4 address. A simple
Unix grep command is enough to scan through multiple text-based files
and extract all lines relevant to a specific IPv4 address.
In an IPv6 network, this is slightly more difficult because different
character strings can express the same IPv6 address. Therefore, the
simple Unix grep command cannot be used. Moreover, an IPv6 node can
have multiple IPv6 addresses.
In order to do correlation in IPv6-related logs, it is advised to
have all logs in a format with only canonical IPv6 addresses
[RFC5952]. Then, the current (or historical) Neighbor Cache data set
must be searched to find the data-link layer address of the IPv6
address. Next, the current and historical Neighbor Cache data sets
must be searched for all IPv6 addresses associated with this data-
link layer address to derive the search set. The last step is to
search in all log files (containing only IPv6 addresses in canonical
format) for any IPv6 addresses in the search set.
Moreover, [RFC7934] recommends using multiple IPv6 addresses per
prefix, so the correlation must also be done among those multiple
IPv6 addresses, for example, by discovering all IPv6 addresses
associated with the same MAC address and interface in the NDP cache
(Section 2.6.1.4).
2.6.2.4. Abnormal Behavior Detection
Abnormal behavior (such as network scanning, spamming, DoS) can be
detected in the same way as in an IPv4 network:
* a sudden increase of traffic detected by interface counter (SNMP)
or by aggregated traffic from IPFIX records [RFC7012],
* rapid growth of ND cache size, or
* change in traffic pattern (number of connections per second,
number of connections per host, etc.) observed with the use of
IPFIX [RFC7012].
2.6.3. Summary
While some data sources (IPFIX, MIB, switch Content Addressable
Memory (CAM) tables, logs, etc.) used in IPv4 are also used in the
secure operation of an IPv6 network, the DHCPv6 lease file is less
reliable and the Neighbor Cache is of prime importance.
The fact that there are multiple ways to express the same IPv6
address in a character string renders the use of filters mandatory
when correlation must be done.
2.7. Transition/Coexistence Technologies
As it is expected that some networks will not run in a pure IPv6-only
mode, the different transition mechanisms must be deployed and
operated in a secure way. This section proposes operational
guidelines for the most-known and deployed transition techniques.
[RFC4942] also contains security considerations for transition or
coexistence scenarios.
2.7.1. Dual Stack
Dual stack is often the first deployment choice for network
operators. Dual stacking the network offers some advantages over
other transition mechanisms. Firstly, the impact on existing IPv4
operations is reduced. Secondly, in the absence of tunnels or
address translation, the IPv4 and IPv6 traffic are native (easier to
observe and secure) and should have the same network processing
(network path, quality of service, etc.). Dual stack enables a
gradual termination of the IPv4 operations when the IPv6 network is
ready for prime time. On the other hand, the operators have to
manage two network stacks with the added complexities.
From an operational security perspective, this now means that the
network operator has twice the exposure. One needs to think about
protecting both protocols now. At a minimum, the IPv6 portion of a
dual-stacked network should be consistent with IPv4 from a security
policy point of view. Typically, the following methods are employed
to protect IPv4 networks at the edge or security perimeter:
* ACLs to permit or deny traffic,
* firewalls with stateful packet inspection, and
* application firewalls inspecting the application flows.
It is recommended that these ACLs and/or firewalls be additionally
configured to protect IPv6 communications. The enforced IPv6
security must be congruent with the IPv4 security policy; otherwise,
the attacker will use the protocol version that has the more relaxed
security policy. Maintaining the congruence between security
policies can be challenging (especially over time); it is recommended
to use a firewall or an ACL manager that is dual stack, i.e., a
system that can apply a single ACL entry to a mixed group of IPv4 and
IPv6 addresses.
Application firewalls work at the application layer and are oblivious
to the IP version, i.e., they work as well for IPv6 as for IPv4 and
the same application security policy will work for both protocol
versions.
Also, given the end-to-end connectivity that IPv6 provides, it is
recommended that hosts be fortified against threats. General device
hardening guidelines are provided in Section 2.8.
For many years, all host operating systems have IPv6 enabled by
default, so it is possible even in an 'IPv4-only' network to attack
L2-adjacent victims via their IPv6 link-local address or via a global
IPv6 address when the attacker provides rogue RAs or a rogue DHCPv6
service.
[RFC7123] discusses the security implications of native IPv6 support
and IPv6 transition/coexistence technologies on 'IPv4-only' networks
and describes possible mitigations for the aforementioned issues.
2.7.2. Encapsulation Mechanisms
There are many tunnels used for specific use cases. Except when
protected by IPsec [RFC4301] or alternative tunnel encryption
methods, all those tunnels have a number of security issues, as
described in [RFC6169]:
tunnel injection:
A malevolent actor knowing a few pieces of information (for
example, the tunnel endpoints and the encapsulation protocol) can
forge a packet that looks like a legitimate and valid encapsulated
packet that will gladly be accepted by the destination tunnel
endpoint. This is a specific case of spoofing.
traffic interception:
No confidentiality is provided by the tunnel protocols (without
the use of IPsec or alternative encryption methods); therefore,
anybody on the tunnel path can intercept the traffic and have
access to the cleartext IPv6 packet. Combined with the absence of
authentication, an on-path attack can also be mounted.
service theft:
As there is no authorization, even an unauthorized user can use a
tunnel relay for free (this is a specific case of tunnel
injection).
reflection attack:
Another specific use case of tunnel injection where the attacker
injects packets with an IPv4 destination address not matching the
IPv6 address causing the first tunnel endpoint to re-encapsulate
the packet to the destination. Hence, the final IPv4 destination
will not see the original IPv4 address but only the IPv4 address
of the relay router.
bypassing security policy:
If a firewall or an Intrusion Prevention System (IPS) is on the
path of the tunnel, then it may neither inspect nor detect
malevolent IPv6 traffic transmitted over the tunnel.
To mitigate the bypassing of security policies, it is often
recommended to block all automatic tunnels in default OS
configuration (if they are not required) by denying IPv4 packets
matching:
IP protocol 41: This will block Intra-Site Automatic Tunnel
Addressing Protocol (ISATAP) (Section 2.7.2.2), 6to4
(Section 2.7.2.7), 6rd (Section 2.7.2.3), and 6in4
(Section 2.7.2.1) tunnels.
IP protocol 47: This will block GRE (Section 2.7.2.1) tunnels.
UDP port 3544: This will block the default encapsulation of Teredo
(Section 2.7.2.8) tunnels.
Ingress filtering [RFC2827] should also be applied on all tunnel
endpoints, if applicable, to prevent IPv6 address spoofing.
The reflection attack cited above should also be prevented by using
an IPv6 ACL preventing the hair pinning of the traffic.
As several of the tunnel techniques share the same encapsulation
(i.e., IPv4 protocol 41) and embed the IPv4 address in the IPv6
address, there are a set of well-known looping attacks described in
[RFC6324]. This RFC also proposes mitigation techniques.
2.7.2.1. Site-to-Site Static Tunnels
Site-to-site static tunnels are described in [RFC2529] and in GRE
[RFC2784]. As the IPv4 endpoints are statically configured and are
not dynamic, they are slightly more secure (bidirectional service
theft is mostly impossible), but traffic interception and tunnel
injection are still possible. Therefore, the use of IPsec [RFC4301]
in transport mode to protect the encapsulated IPv4 packets is
recommended for those tunnels. Alternatively, IPsec in tunnel mode
can be used to transport IPv6 traffic over an untrusted IPv4 network.
2.7.2.2. ISATAP
ISATAP tunnels [RFC5214] are mainly used within a single
administrative domain and to connect a single IPv6 host to the IPv6
network. This often implies that those systems are usually managed
by a single entity; therefore, audit trail and strict anti-spoofing
are usually possible, and this raises the overall security. Even if
ISATAP is no more often used, its security issues are relevant, per
[KRISTOFF].
Special care must be taken to avoid a looping attack by implementing
the measures of [RFC6324] and [RFC6964] (especially in Section 3.6).
IPsec [RFC4301] in transport or tunnel mode can be used to secure the
IPv4 ISATAP traffic to provide IPv6 traffic confidentiality and
prevent service theft.
2.7.2.3. 6rd
While 6rd tunnels share the same encapsulation as 6to4 tunnels
(Section 2.7.2.7), they are designed to be used within a single SP
domain; in other words, they are deployed in a more constrained
environment (e.g., anti-spoofing, protocol 41 filtering at the edge)
than 6to4 tunnels and have few security issues other than lack of
confidentiality. The security considerations in Section 12 of
[RFC5969] describes how to secure 6rd tunnels.
IPsec [RFC4301] for the transported IPv6 traffic can be used if
confidentiality is important.
2.7.2.4. 6PE, 6VPE, and LDPv6
Organizations using MPLS in their core can also use IPv6 Provider
Edge (6PE) [RFC4798] and IPv6 Virtual Private Extension (6VPE)
[RFC4659] to enable IPv6 access over MPLS. As 6PE and 6VPE are
really similar to BGP/MPLS IP VPNs described in [RFC4364], the
security properties of these networks are also similar to those
described in [RFC4381] (please note that this RFC may resemble a
published IETF work, but it is not based on an IETF review and the
IETF disclaims any knowledge of the fitness of this RFC for any
purpose). They rely on:
* address space, routing, and traffic separation with the help of
VRFs (only applicable to 6VPE);
* hiding the IPv4 core, hence, removing all attacks against
P-routers; and
* securing the routing protocol between Customer Edge (CE) and
Provider Edge (PE); in the case of 6PE and 6VPE, link-local
addresses (see [RFC7404]) can be used, and, as these addresses
cannot be reached from outside of the link, the security of 6PE
and 6VPE is even higher than an IPv4 BGP/MPLS IP VPN.
LDPv6 itself does not induce new risks; see [RFC7552].
2.7.2.5. DS-Lite
Dual-Stack Lite (DS-Lite) is also a translation mechanism and is
therefore analyzed further (Section 2.7.3.3) in this document, as it
includes IPv4 NAPT.
2.7.2.6. Mapping of Address and Port
With the encapsulation and translation versions of Mapping of Address
and Port (MAP) -- abbreviated MAP-E [RFC7597] and MAP-T [RFC7599] --
the access network is purely an IPv6 network, and MAP protocols are
used to provide IPv4 hosts on the subscriber network access to IPv4
hosts on the Internet. The subscriber router does stateful
operations in order to map all internal IPv4 addresses and Layer 4
ports to the IPv4 address and the set of Layer 4 ports received
through the MAP configuration process. The SP equipment always does
stateless operations (either decapsulation or stateless translation).
Therefore, as opposed to Section 2.7.3.3, there is no state
exhaustion DoS attack against the SP equipment because there is no
state and there is no operation caused by a new Layer 4 connection
(no logging operation).
The SP MAP equipment should implement all the security considerations
of [RFC7597], notably ensuring that the mapping of the IPv4 address
and port are consistent with the configuration. As MAP has a
predictable IPv4 address and port mapping, the audit logs are easier
to use, as there is a clear mapping between the IPv6 address and the
IPv4 address and ports.
2.7.2.7. 6to4
In [RFC3056], 6to4 tunnels require a public-routable IPv4 address in
order to work correctly. They can be used to provide either single
IPv6 host connectivity to the IPv6 Internet or multiple IPv6 networks
connectivity to the IPv6 Internet. The 6to4 relay was historically
the anycast address defined in [RFC3068], which has been deprecated
by [RFC7526] and is no longer used by recent Operating Systems. Some
security considerations are explained in [RFC3964].
[RFC6343] points out that if an operator provides well-managed
servers and relays for 6to4, nonencapsulated IPv6 packets will pass
through well-defined points (the native IPv6 interfaces of those
servers and relays) at which security mechanisms may be applied.
Client usage of 6to4 by default is now discouraged, and significant
precautions are needed to avoid operational problems.
2.7.2.8. Teredo
Teredo tunnels [RFC4380] are mainly used in a residential environment
because Teredo easily traverses an IPv4 NAPT device thanks to its UDP
encapsulation. Teredo tunnels connect a single host to the IPv6
Internet. Teredo shares the same issues as other tunnels: no
authentication, no confidentiality, possible spoofing, and reflection
attacks.
IPsec [RFC4301] for the transported IPv6 traffic is recommended.
The biggest threat to Teredo is probably for an IPv4-only network, as
Teredo has been designed to easily traverse IPv4 NAT-PT devices,
which are quite often co-located with a stateful firewall.
Therefore, if the stateful IPv4 firewall allows unrestricted UDP
outbound and accepts the return UDP traffic, then Teredo actually
punches a hole in this firewall for all IPv6 traffic to and from the
Internet. Host policies can be deployed to block Teredo in an
IPv4-only network in order to avoid this firewall bypass. On the
IPv4 firewall, all outbound UDPs should be blocked except for the
commonly used services (e.g., port 53 for DNS, port 123 for NTP, port
443 for QUIC, port 500 for Internet Key Exchange Protocol (IKE), port
3478 for Session Traversal Utilities for NAT (STUN), etc.).
Teredo is now hardly ever used and no longer enabled by default in
most environments so it is less of a threat; however, special
consideration must be made in cases when devices with older or
operating systems that have not been updated may be present and by
default were running Teredo.
2.7.3. Translation Mechanisms
Translation mechanisms between IPv4 and IPv6 networks are alternate
coexistence strategies while networks transition to IPv6. While a
framework is described in [RFC6144], the specific security
considerations are documented with each individual mechanism. For
the most part, they specifically mention interference with IPsec or
DNSSEC deployments, how to mitigate spoofed traffic, and what some
effective filtering strategies may be.
While not really a transition mechanism to IPv6, this section also
includes the discussion about the use of heavy IPv4-to-IPv4 network
addresses and port translation to prolong the life of IPv4-only
networks.
2.7.3.1. Carrier-Grade NAT (CGN)
Carrier-Grade NAT (CGN), also called NAT444 CGN or Large-Scale NAT
(LSN) or SP NAT, is described in [RFC6264] and is utilized as an
interim measure to extend the use of IPv4 in a large service provider
network until the provider can deploy an effective IPv6 solution.
[RFC6598] requested a specific IANA-allocated /10 IPv4 address block
to be used as address space shared by all access networks using CGN.
This has been allocated as 100.64.0.0/10.
Section 13 of [RFC6269] lists some specific security-related issues
caused by large-scale address sharing. The Security Considerations
section of [RFC6598] also lists some specific mitigation techniques
for potential misuse of shared address space. Some law enforcement
agencies have identified CGN as impeding their cybercrime
investigations (for example, see the Europol press release on CGN
[europol-cgn]). Many translation techniques (NAT64, DS-Lite, etc.)
have the same security issues as CGN when one part of the connection
is IPv4 only.
[RFC6302] has recommendations for Internet-facing servers to also log
the source TCP or UDP ports of incoming connections in an attempt to
help identify the users behind such a CGN.
[RFC7422] suggests the use of deterministic address mapping in order
to reduce logging requirements for CGN. The idea is to have a known
algorithm for mapping the internal subscriber to/from public TCP and
UDP ports.
[RFC6888] lists common requirements for CGNs. [RFC6967] analyzes
some solutions to enforce policies on misbehaving nodes when address
sharing is used. [RFC7857] also updates the NAT behavioral
requirements.
2.7.3.2. NAT64/DNS64 and 464XLAT
Stateful NAT64 translation [RFC6146] allows IPv6-only clients to
contact IPv4 servers using unicast UDP, TCP, or ICMP. It can be used
in conjunction with DNS64 [RFC6147], a mechanism that synthesizes
AAAA records from existing A records. There is also a stateless
NAT64 [RFC7915], which has similar security aspects but with the
added benefit of being stateless and is thereby less prone to a state
exhaustion attack.
The Security Consideration sections of [RFC6146] and [RFC6147] list
the comprehensive issues; in Section 8 of [RFC6147], there are some
considerations on the interaction between NAT64 and DNSSEC. A
specific issue with the use of NAT64 is that it will interfere with
most IPsec deployments unless UDP encapsulation is used.
Another translation mechanism relying on a combination of stateful
and stateless translation, 464XLAT [RFC6877], can be used to do a
host-local translation from IPv4 to IPv6 and a network provider
translation from IPv6 to IPv4, i.e., giving IPv4-only application
access to an IPv4-only server over an IPv6-only network. 464XLAT
shares the same security considerations as NAT64 and DNS64; however,
it can be used without DNS64, avoiding the DNSSEC implications.
2.7.3.3. DS-Lite
Dual-Stack Lite (DS-Lite) [RFC6333] is a transition technique that
enables a service provider to share IPv4 addresses among customers by
combining two well-known technologies: IP in IP (IPv4-in-IPv6) and
IPv4 NAPT.
Security considerations, with respect to DS-Lite, mainly revolve
around logging data, preventing DoS attacks from rogue devices (as
the Address Family Translation Router (AFTR) [RFC6333] function is
stateful), and restricting service offered by the AFTR only to
registered customers.
Section 11 of [RFC6333] and Section 2 of [RFC7785] describe important
security issues associated with this technology.
2.8. General Device Hardening
With almost all devices being IPv6 enabled by default and with many
endpoints having IPv6 connectivity to the Internet, it is critical to
also harden those devices against attacks over IPv6.
The same techniques used to protect devices against attacks over IPv4
should be used for IPv6 and should include but are not limited to:
* restricting device access to authorized individuals;
* monitoring and auditing access to the device;
* turning off any unused services on the end node
* understanding which IPv6 addresses are being used to source
traffic and changing defaults if necessary;
* using cryptographically protected protocols for device management
(Secure Copy Protocol (SCP), SNMPv3, SSH, TLS, etc.);
* using host firewall capabilities to control traffic that gets
processed by upper-layer protocols;
* applying firmware, OS, and application patches/upgrades to the
devices in a timely manner;
* using multifactor credentials to authenticate to devices; and
* using virus scanners to detect malicious programs.
3. Enterprises-Specific Security Considerations
Enterprises [RFC7381] generally have robust network security policies
in place to protect existing IPv4 networks. These policies have been
distilled from years of experiential knowledge of securing IPv4
networks. At the very least, it is recommended that enterprise
networks have parity between their security policies for both
protocol versions. This section also applies to the enterprise part
of all SP networks, i.e., the part of the network where the SP
employees are connected.
Security considerations in the enterprise can be broadly categorized
into two groups: external and internal.
3.1. External Security Considerations
The external aspect deals with providing security at the edge or
perimeter of the enterprise network where it meets the service
provider's network. This is commonly achieved by enforcing a
security policy, either by implementing dedicated firewalls with
stateful packet inspection or a router with ACLs. A common default
IPv4 policy on firewalls that could easily be ported to IPv6 is to
allow all traffic outbound while only allowing specific traffic, such
as established sessions, inbound (see [RFC6092]). Section 3.2 of
[RFC7381] also provides similar recommendations.
Here are a few more things that could enhance the default policy:
* Filter internal-use IPv6 addresses at the perimeter; this will
also mitigate the vulnerabilities listed in [RFC7359].
* Discard packets from and to bogon and reserved space; see [CYMRU]
and [RFC8190].
* Accept certain ICMPv6 messages to allow proper operation of ND and
Path MTU Discovery (PMTUD); see [RFC4890] or [REY_PF] for hosts.
* Based on the use of the network, filter specific extension headers
by accepting only the required ones (permit list approach), such
as ESP, AH, and not forgetting the required transport layers:
ICMP, TCP, UDP, etc. This filtering should be done where
applicable at the edge and possibly inside the perimeter; see
[IPV6-EH-FILTERING].
* Filter packets having an illegal IPv6 header chain at the
perimeter (and, if possible, inside the network as well); see
Section 2.2.
* Filter unneeded services at the perimeter.
* Implement ingress and egress anti-spoofing in the forwarding and
control planes; see [RFC2827] and [RFC3704].
* Implement appropriate rate-limiters and control plane policers
based on traffic baselines.
Having global IPv6 addresses on all the enterprise sites is different
than in IPv4, where [RFC1918] addresses are often used internally and
not routed over the Internet. [RFC7359] and [WEBER_VPN] explain that
without careful design, there could be IPv6 leakages from Layer 3
VPNs.
3.2. Internal Security Considerations
The internal aspect deals with providing security inside the
perimeter of the network, including end hosts. Internal networks of
enterprises are often different, e.g., University campus, wireless
guest access, etc., so there is no "one size fits all"
recommendation.
The most significant concerns here are related to Neighbor Discovery.
At the network level, it is recommended that all security
considerations discussed in Section 2.3 be reviewed carefully and the
recommendations be considered in-depth as well. Section 4.1 of
[RFC7381] also provides some recommendations.
As mentioned in Section 2.7.2, care must be taken when running
automated IPv6-in-IPv4 tunnels.
When site-to-site VPNs are used, it should be kept in mind that,
given the global scope of IPv6 global addresses as opposed to the
common use of IPv4 private address space [RFC1918], sites might be
able to communicate with each other over the Internet even when the
VPN mechanism is not available. Hence, no traffic encryption is
performed and traffic could be injected from the Internet into the
site; see [WEBER_VPN]. It is recommended to filter at Internet
connection(s) packets having a source or destination address
belonging to the site internal prefix or prefixes; this should be
done for ingress and egress traffic.
Hosts need to be hardened directly through security policy to protect
against security threats. The host firewall default capabilities
have to be clearly understood. In some cases, third-party firewalls
have no IPv6 support, whereas the native firewall installed by
default has IPv6 support. General device hardening guidelines are
provided in Section 2.8.
It should also be noted that many hosts still use IPv4 for
transporting logs for RADIUS, DIAMETER, TACACS+, syslog, etc.
Operators cannot rely on an IPv6-only security policy to secure such
protocols that are still using IPv4.
4. Service Provider Security Considerations
4.1. BGP
The threats and mitigation techniques are identical between IPv4 and
IPv6. Broadly speaking, they are:
* authenticating the TCP session;
* TTL security (which becomes hop-limit security in IPv6), as in
[RFC5082];
* bogon AS filtering; see [CYMRU]; and
* prefix filtering.
These are explained in more detail in Section 2.5. Also, the
recommendations of [RFC7454] should be considered.
4.1.1. Remote Triggered Black Hole Filtering
A Remote Triggered Black Hole (RTBH) [RFC5635] works identically in
IPv4 and IPv6. IANA has allocated the 100::/64 prefix to be used as
the discard prefix [RFC6666].
4.2. Transition/Coexistence Mechanism
SPs will typically use transition mechanisms, such as 6rd, 6PE, MAP,
and NAT64, which have been analyzed in the transition and coexistence
(Section 2.7).
4.3. Lawful Intercept
The lawful intercept requirements are similar for IPv6 and IPv4
architectures and will be subject to the laws enforced in different
geographic regions. The local issues with each jurisdiction can make
this challenging and both corporate legal and privacy personnel
should be involved in discussions pertaining to what information gets
logged and with regard to the respective log retention policies for
this information.
The target of interception will usually be a residential subscriber
(e.g., his/her PPP session, physical line, or CPE MAC address). In
the absence of IPv6 NAT on the CPE, IPv6 has the possibility to allow
for intercepting the traffic from a single host (i.e., a /128 target)
rather than the whole set of hosts of a subscriber (which could be a
/48, /60, or /64).
In contrast, in mobile environments, since the 3GPP specifications
allocate a /64 per device, it may be sufficient to intercept traffic
from the /64 rather than specific /128s (since each time the device
establishes a data connection, it gets a new IID).
5. Residential Users Security Considerations
The IETF Home Networking (homenet) Working Group is working on
standards and guidelines for IPv6 residential networks; this
obviously includes operational security considerations, but this is
still a work in progress. [RFC8520] is an interesting approach on
how firewalls could retrieve and apply specific security policies to
some residential devices.
Some residential users have less experience and knowledge about
security or networking than experimented operators. As most of the
recent hosts (e.g., smartphones and tablets) have IPv6 enabled by
default, IPv6 security is important for those users. Even with an
IPv4-only ISP, those users can get IPv6 Internet access with the help
of Teredo (Section 2.7.2.8) tunnels. Several peer-to-peer programs
support IPv6, and those programs can initiate a Teredo tunnel through
an IPv4 residential gateway, with the consequence of making the
internal host reachable from any IPv6 host on the Internet.
Therefore, it is recommended that all host security products
(including personal firewalls) are configured with a dual-stack
security policy.
If the residential CPE has IPv6 connectivity, [RFC7084] defines the
requirements of an IPv6 CPE and does not take a position on the
debate of default IPv6 security policy, as defined in [RFC6092]:
outbound only:
Allowing all internally initiated connections and blocking all
externally initiated ones, which is a common default security
policy enforced by IPv4 residential gateway doing NAPT, but it
also breaks the end-to-end reachability promise of IPv6.
[RFC6092] lists several recommendations to design such a CPE.
open/transparent:
Allowing all internally and externally initiated connections,
therefore, restoring the end-to-end nature of the Internet for
IPv6 traffic but having a different security policy for IPv6 than
for IPv4.
REC-49 states that a choice must be given to the user to select one
of those two policies [RFC6092].
6. Further Reading
There are several documents that describe in more detail the security
of an IPv6 network; these documents are not written by the IETF and
some of them are dated but are listed here for the reader's
convenience:
* Guidelines for the Secure Deployment of IPv6 [NIST]
* North American IPv6 Task Force Technology Report - IPv6 Security
Technology Paper [NAv6TF_Security]
* IPv6 Security [IPv6_Security_Book]
7. Security Considerations
This memo attempts to give an overview of security considerations of
operating an IPv6 network both for an IPv6-only network and for
networks utilizing the most widely deployed IPv4/IPv6 coexistence
strategies.
8. IANA Considerations
This document has no IANA actions.
9. References
9.1. Normative References
[RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119,
DOI 10.17487/RFC2119, March 1997,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2119>.
[RFC8174] Leiba, B., "Ambiguity of Uppercase vs Lowercase in RFC
2119 Key Words", BCP 14, RFC 8174, DOI 10.17487/RFC8174,
May 2017, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8174>.
[RFC8200] Deering, S. and R. Hinden, "Internet Protocol, Version 6
(IPv6) Specification", STD 86, RFC 8200,
DOI 10.17487/RFC8200, July 2017,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8200>.
9.2. Informative References
[CYMRU] Team Cymru, "The Bogon Reference", <https://team-
cymru.com/community-services/bogon-reference/>.
[ENTROPYIP]
Foremski, P., Plonka, D., and A. Berger, "Entropy/IP:
Uncovering Structure in IPv6 Addresses", November 2016,
<http://www.entropy-ip.com/>.
[europol-cgn]
Europol, "Are you sharing the same IP address as a
criminal? Law enforcement call for the end of Carrier
Grade Nat (CGN) to increase accountability online",
October 2017,
<https://www.europol.europa.eu/newsroom/news/are-you-
sharing-same-ip-address-criminal-law-enforcement-call-for-
end-of-carrier-grade-nat-cgn-to-increase-accountability-
online>.
[GDPR] European Union, "Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European
Parliament and of the Council of 27 April 2016 on the
protection of natural persons with regard to the
processing of personal data and on the free movement of
such data, and repealing Directive 95/46/EC (General Data
Protection Regulation)", Official Journal of the European
Union, April 2016,
<https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2016/679/oj>.
[IANA-IPFIX]
IANA, "IP Flow Information Export (IPFIX) Entities",
<http://www.iana.org/assignments/ipfix>.
[IEEE-802.1X]
IEEE, "IEEE Standard for Local and Metropolitan Area
Networks--Port-Based Network Access Control", IEEE Std
802.1X-2020, February 2020.
[IPV6-EH-FILTERING]
Gont, F. and W. Liu, "Recommendations on the Filtering of
IPv6 Packets Containing IPv6 Extension Headers at Transit
Routers", Work in Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-ietf-
opsec-ipv6-eh-filtering-08, 3 June 2021,
<https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-opsec-
ipv6-eh-filtering-08>.
[IPV6-EH-PARSING]
Kampanakis, P., "Implementation Guidelines for parsing
IPv6 Extension Headers", Work in Progress, Internet-Draft,
draft-kampanakis-6man-ipv6-eh-parsing-01, 5 August 2014,
<https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-kampanakis-
6man-ipv6-eh-parsing-01>.
[IPv6_Security_Book]
Hogg, S. and É. Vyncke, "IPv6 Security", CiscoPress,
ISBN 1587055945, December 2008.
[KRISTOFF] Kristoff, J., Ghasemisharif, M., Kanich, C., and J.
Polakis, "Plight at the End of the Tunnel: Legacy IPv6
Transition Mechanisms in the Wild", March 2021,
<https://dataplane.org/jtk/publications/kgkp-pam-21.pdf>.
[NAv6TF_Security]
Kaeo, M., Green, D., Bound, J., and Y. Pouffary, "North
American IPv6 Task Force (NAv6TF) Technology Report "IPv6
Security Technology Paper", July 2006,
<http://www.ipv6forum.com/dl/white/
NAv6TF_Security_Report.pdf>.
[NIST] Frankel, S., Graveman, R., Pearce, J., and M. Rooks,
"Guidelines for the Secure Deployment of IPv6", December
2010, <http://csrc.nist.gov/publications/nistpubs/800-119/
sp800-119.pdf>.
[RADB] Merit Network, Inc., "RADb: The Internet Routing
Registry", <https://www.radb.net/>.
[REY_PF] Rey, E., "Local Packet Filtering with IPv6", July 2017,
<https://labs.ripe.net/Members/enno_rey/local-packet-
filtering-with-ipv6>.
[RFC0826] Plummer, D., "An Ethernet Address Resolution Protocol: Or
Converting Network Protocol Addresses to 48.bit Ethernet
Address for Transmission on Ethernet Hardware", STD 37,
RFC 826, DOI 10.17487/RFC0826, November 1982,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc826>.
[RFC1918] Rekhter, Y., Moskowitz, B., Karrenberg, D., de Groot, G.
J., and E. Lear, "Address Allocation for Private
Internets", BCP 5, RFC 1918, DOI 10.17487/RFC1918,
February 1996, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc1918>.
[RFC2131] Droms, R., "Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol",
RFC 2131, DOI 10.17487/RFC2131, March 1997,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2131>.
[RFC2460] Deering, S. and R. Hinden, "Internet Protocol, Version 6
(IPv6) Specification", RFC 2460, DOI 10.17487/RFC2460,
December 1998, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2460>.
[RFC2529] Carpenter, B. and C. Jung, "Transmission of IPv6 over IPv4
Domains without Explicit Tunnels", RFC 2529,
DOI 10.17487/RFC2529, March 1999,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2529>.
[RFC2663] Srisuresh, P. and M. Holdrege, "IP Network Address
Translator (NAT) Terminology and Considerations",
RFC 2663, DOI 10.17487/RFC2663, August 1999,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2663>.
[RFC2784] Farinacci, D., Li, T., Hanks, S., Meyer, D., and P.
Traina, "Generic Routing Encapsulation (GRE)", RFC 2784,
DOI 10.17487/RFC2784, March 2000,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2784>.
[RFC2827] Ferguson, P. and D. Senie, "Network Ingress Filtering:
Defeating Denial of Service Attacks which employ IP Source
Address Spoofing", BCP 38, RFC 2827, DOI 10.17487/RFC2827,
May 2000, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2827>.
[RFC2866] Rigney, C., "RADIUS Accounting", RFC 2866,
DOI 10.17487/RFC2866, June 2000,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2866>.
[RFC3056] Carpenter, B. and K. Moore, "Connection of IPv6 Domains
via IPv4 Clouds", RFC 3056, DOI 10.17487/RFC3056, February
2001, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3056>.
[RFC3068] Huitema, C., "An Anycast Prefix for 6to4 Relay Routers",
RFC 3068, DOI 10.17487/RFC3068, June 2001,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3068>.
[RFC3627] Savola, P., "Use of /127 Prefix Length Between Routers
Considered Harmful", RFC 3627, DOI 10.17487/RFC3627,
September 2003, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3627>.
[RFC3704] Baker, F. and P. Savola, "Ingress Filtering for Multihomed
Networks", BCP 84, RFC 3704, DOI 10.17487/RFC3704, March
2004, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3704>.
[RFC3756] Nikander, P., Ed., Kempf, J., and E. Nordmark, "IPv6
Neighbor Discovery (ND) Trust Models and Threats",
RFC 3756, DOI 10.17487/RFC3756, May 2004,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3756>.
[RFC3964] Savola, P. and C. Patel, "Security Considerations for
6to4", RFC 3964, DOI 10.17487/RFC3964, December 2004,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3964>.
[RFC3971] Arkko, J., Ed., Kempf, J., Zill, B., and P. Nikander,
"SEcure Neighbor Discovery (SEND)", RFC 3971,
DOI 10.17487/RFC3971, March 2005,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3971>.
[RFC3972] Aura, T., "Cryptographically Generated Addresses (CGA)",
RFC 3972, DOI 10.17487/RFC3972, March 2005,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3972>.
[RFC4033] Arends, R., Austein, R., Larson, M., Massey, D., and S.
Rose, "DNS Security Introduction and Requirements",
RFC 4033, DOI 10.17487/RFC4033, March 2005,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4033>.
[RFC4107] Bellovin, S. and R. Housley, "Guidelines for Cryptographic
Key Management", BCP 107, RFC 4107, DOI 10.17487/RFC4107,
June 2005, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4107>.
[RFC4193] Hinden, R. and B. Haberman, "Unique Local IPv6 Unicast
Addresses", RFC 4193, DOI 10.17487/RFC4193, October 2005,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4193>.
[RFC4293] Routhier, S., Ed., "Management Information Base for the
Internet Protocol (IP)", RFC 4293, DOI 10.17487/RFC4293,
April 2006, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4293>.
[RFC4301] Kent, S. and K. Seo, "Security Architecture for the
Internet Protocol", RFC 4301, DOI 10.17487/RFC4301,
December 2005, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4301>.
[RFC4302] Kent, S., "IP Authentication Header", RFC 4302,
DOI 10.17487/RFC4302, December 2005,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4302>.
[RFC4303] Kent, S., "IP Encapsulating Security Payload (ESP)",
RFC 4303, DOI 10.17487/RFC4303, December 2005,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4303>.
[RFC4364] Rosen, E. and Y. Rekhter, "BGP/MPLS IP Virtual Private
Networks (VPNs)", RFC 4364, DOI 10.17487/RFC4364, February
2006, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4364>.
[RFC4380] Huitema, C., "Teredo: Tunneling IPv6 over UDP through
Network Address Translations (NATs)", RFC 4380,
DOI 10.17487/RFC4380, February 2006,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4380>.
[RFC4381] Behringer, M., "Analysis of the Security of BGP/MPLS IP
Virtual Private Networks (VPNs)", RFC 4381,
DOI 10.17487/RFC4381, February 2006,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4381>.
[RFC4443] Conta, A., Deering, S., and M. Gupta, Ed., "Internet
Control Message Protocol (ICMPv6) for the Internet
Protocol Version 6 (IPv6) Specification", STD 89,
RFC 4443, DOI 10.17487/RFC4443, March 2006,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4443>.
[RFC4552] Gupta, M. and N. Melam, "Authentication/Confidentiality
for OSPFv3", RFC 4552, DOI 10.17487/RFC4552, June 2006,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4552>.
[RFC4649] Volz, B., "Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol for IPv6
(DHCPv6) Relay Agent Remote-ID Option", RFC 4649,
DOI 10.17487/RFC4649, August 2006,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4649>.
[RFC4659] De Clercq, J., Ooms, D., Carugi, M., and F. Le Faucheur,
"BGP-MPLS IP Virtual Private Network (VPN) Extension for
IPv6 VPN", RFC 4659, DOI 10.17487/RFC4659, September 2006,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4659>.
[RFC4795] Aboba, B., Thaler, D., and L. Esibov, "Link-local
Multicast Name Resolution (LLMNR)", RFC 4795,
DOI 10.17487/RFC4795, January 2007,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4795>.
[RFC4798] De Clercq, J., Ooms, D., Prevost, S., and F. Le Faucheur,
"Connecting IPv6 Islands over IPv4 MPLS Using IPv6
Provider Edge Routers (6PE)", RFC 4798,
DOI 10.17487/RFC4798, February 2007,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4798>.
[RFC4861] Narten, T., Nordmark, E., Simpson, W., and H. Soliman,
"Neighbor Discovery for IP version 6 (IPv6)", RFC 4861,
DOI 10.17487/RFC4861, September 2007,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4861>.
[RFC4864] Van de Velde, G., Hain, T., Droms, R., Carpenter, B., and
E. Klein, "Local Network Protection for IPv6", RFC 4864,
DOI 10.17487/RFC4864, May 2007,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4864>.
[RFC4890] Davies, E. and J. Mohacsi, "Recommendations for Filtering
ICMPv6 Messages in Firewalls", RFC 4890,
DOI 10.17487/RFC4890, May 2007,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4890>.
[RFC4942] Davies, E., Krishnan, S., and P. Savola, "IPv6 Transition/
Co-existence Security Considerations", RFC 4942,
DOI 10.17487/RFC4942, September 2007,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4942>.
[RFC5082] Gill, V., Heasley, J., Meyer, D., Savola, P., Ed., and C.
Pignataro, "The Generalized TTL Security Mechanism
(GTSM)", RFC 5082, DOI 10.17487/RFC5082, October 2007,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5082>.
[RFC5214] Templin, F., Gleeson, T., and D. Thaler, "Intra-Site
Automatic Tunnel Addressing Protocol (ISATAP)", RFC 5214,
DOI 10.17487/RFC5214, March 2008,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5214>.
[RFC5340] Coltun, R., Ferguson, D., Moy, J., and A. Lindem, "OSPF
for IPv6", RFC 5340, DOI 10.17487/RFC5340, July 2008,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5340>.
[RFC5635] Kumari, W. and D. McPherson, "Remote Triggered Black Hole
Filtering with Unicast Reverse Path Forwarding (uRPF)",
RFC 5635, DOI 10.17487/RFC5635, August 2009,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5635>.
[RFC5952] Kawamura, S. and M. Kawashima, "A Recommendation for IPv6
Address Text Representation", RFC 5952,
DOI 10.17487/RFC5952, August 2010,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5952>.
[RFC5969] Townsley, W. and O. Troan, "IPv6 Rapid Deployment on IPv4
Infrastructures (6rd) -- Protocol Specification",
RFC 5969, DOI 10.17487/RFC5969, August 2010,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5969>.
[RFC6092] Woodyatt, J., Ed., "Recommended Simple Security
Capabilities in Customer Premises Equipment (CPE) for
Providing Residential IPv6 Internet Service", RFC 6092,
DOI 10.17487/RFC6092, January 2011,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6092>.
[RFC6104] Chown, T. and S. Venaas, "Rogue IPv6 Router Advertisement
Problem Statement", RFC 6104, DOI 10.17487/RFC6104,
February 2011, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6104>.
[RFC6105] Levy-Abegnoli, E., Van de Velde, G., Popoviciu, C., and J.
Mohacsi, "IPv6 Router Advertisement Guard", RFC 6105,
DOI 10.17487/RFC6105, February 2011,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6105>.
[RFC6144] Baker, F., Li, X., Bao, C., and K. Yin, "Framework for
IPv4/IPv6 Translation", RFC 6144, DOI 10.17487/RFC6144,
April 2011, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6144>.
[RFC6146] Bagnulo, M., Matthews, P., and I. van Beijnum, "Stateful
NAT64: Network Address and Protocol Translation from IPv6
Clients to IPv4 Servers", RFC 6146, DOI 10.17487/RFC6146,
April 2011, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6146>.
[RFC6147] Bagnulo, M., Sullivan, A., Matthews, P., and I. van
Beijnum, "DNS64: DNS Extensions for Network Address
Translation from IPv6 Clients to IPv4 Servers", RFC 6147,
DOI 10.17487/RFC6147, April 2011,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6147>.
[RFC6164] Kohno, M., Nitzan, B., Bush, R., Matsuzaki, Y., Colitti,
L., and T. Narten, "Using 127-Bit IPv6 Prefixes on Inter-
Router Links", RFC 6164, DOI 10.17487/RFC6164, April 2011,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6164>.
[RFC6169] Krishnan, S., Thaler, D., and J. Hoagland, "Security
Concerns with IP Tunneling", RFC 6169,
DOI 10.17487/RFC6169, April 2011,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6169>.
[RFC6177] Narten, T., Huston, G., and L. Roberts, "IPv6 Address
Assignment to End Sites", BCP 157, RFC 6177,
DOI 10.17487/RFC6177, March 2011,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6177>.
[RFC6192] Dugal, D., Pignataro, C., and R. Dunn, "Protecting the
Router Control Plane", RFC 6192, DOI 10.17487/RFC6192,
March 2011, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6192>.
[RFC6221] Miles, D., Ed., Ooghe, S., Dec, W., Krishnan, S., and A.
Kavanagh, "Lightweight DHCPv6 Relay Agent", RFC 6221,
DOI 10.17487/RFC6221, May 2011,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6221>.
[RFC6241] Enns, R., Ed., Bjorklund, M., Ed., Schoenwaelder, J., Ed.,
and A. Bierman, Ed., "Network Configuration Protocol
(NETCONF)", RFC 6241, DOI 10.17487/RFC6241, June 2011,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6241>.
[RFC6264] Jiang, S., Guo, D., and B. Carpenter, "An Incremental
Carrier-Grade NAT (CGN) for IPv6 Transition", RFC 6264,
DOI 10.17487/RFC6264, June 2011,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6264>.
[RFC6269] Ford, M., Ed., Boucadair, M., Durand, A., Levis, P., and
P. Roberts, "Issues with IP Address Sharing", RFC 6269,
DOI 10.17487/RFC6269, June 2011,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6269>.
[RFC6296] Wasserman, M. and F. Baker, "IPv6-to-IPv6 Network Prefix
Translation", RFC 6296, DOI 10.17487/RFC6296, June 2011,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6296>.
[RFC6302] Durand, A., Gashinsky, I., Lee, D., and S. Sheppard,
"Logging Recommendations for Internet-Facing Servers",
BCP 162, RFC 6302, DOI 10.17487/RFC6302, June 2011,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6302>.
[RFC6324] Nakibly, G. and F. Templin, "Routing Loop Attack Using
IPv6 Automatic Tunnels: Problem Statement and Proposed
Mitigations", RFC 6324, DOI 10.17487/RFC6324, August 2011,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6324>.
[RFC6333] Durand, A., Droms, R., Woodyatt, J., and Y. Lee, "Dual-
Stack Lite Broadband Deployments Following IPv4
Exhaustion", RFC 6333, DOI 10.17487/RFC6333, August 2011,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6333>.
[RFC6343] Carpenter, B., "Advisory Guidelines for 6to4 Deployment",
RFC 6343, DOI 10.17487/RFC6343, August 2011,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6343>.
[RFC6434] Jankiewicz, E., Loughney, J., and T. Narten, "IPv6 Node
Requirements", RFC 6434, DOI 10.17487/RFC6434, December
2011, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6434>.
[RFC6459] Korhonen, J., Ed., Soininen, J., Patil, B., Savolainen,
T., Bajko, G., and K. Iisakkila, "IPv6 in 3rd Generation
Partnership Project (3GPP) Evolved Packet System (EPS)",
RFC 6459, DOI 10.17487/RFC6459, January 2012,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6459>.
[RFC6547] George, W., "RFC 3627 to Historic Status", RFC 6547,
DOI 10.17487/RFC6547, February 2012,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6547>.
[RFC6564] Krishnan, S., Woodyatt, J., Kline, E., Hoagland, J., and
M. Bhatia, "A Uniform Format for IPv6 Extension Headers",
RFC 6564, DOI 10.17487/RFC6564, April 2012,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6564>.
[RFC6583] Gashinsky, I., Jaeggli, J., and W. Kumari, "Operational
Neighbor Discovery Problems", RFC 6583,
DOI 10.17487/RFC6583, March 2012,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6583>.
[RFC6598] Weil, J., Kuarsingh, V., Donley, C., Liljenstolpe, C., and
M. Azinger, "IANA-Reserved IPv4 Prefix for Shared Address
Space", BCP 153, RFC 6598, DOI 10.17487/RFC6598, April
2012, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6598>.
[RFC6620] Nordmark, E., Bagnulo, M., and E. Levy-Abegnoli, "FCFS
SAVI: First-Come, First-Served Source Address Validation
Improvement for Locally Assigned IPv6 Addresses",
RFC 6620, DOI 10.17487/RFC6620, May 2012,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6620>.
[RFC6666] Hilliard, N. and D. Freedman, "A Discard Prefix for IPv6",
RFC 6666, DOI 10.17487/RFC6666, August 2012,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6666>.
[RFC6762] Cheshire, S. and M. Krochmal, "Multicast DNS", RFC 6762,
DOI 10.17487/RFC6762, February 2013,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6762>.
[RFC6763] Cheshire, S. and M. Krochmal, "DNS-Based Service
Discovery", RFC 6763, DOI 10.17487/RFC6763, February 2013,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6763>.
[RFC6775] Shelby, Z., Ed., Chakrabarti, S., Nordmark, E., and C.
Bormann, "Neighbor Discovery Optimization for IPv6 over
Low-Power Wireless Personal Area Networks (6LoWPANs)",
RFC 6775, DOI 10.17487/RFC6775, November 2012,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6775>.
[RFC6877] Mawatari, M., Kawashima, M., and C. Byrne, "464XLAT:
Combination of Stateful and Stateless Translation",
RFC 6877, DOI 10.17487/RFC6877, April 2013,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6877>.
[RFC6888] Perreault, S., Ed., Yamagata, I., Miyakawa, S., Nakagawa,
A., and H. Ashida, "Common Requirements for Carrier-Grade
NATs (CGNs)", BCP 127, RFC 6888, DOI 10.17487/RFC6888,
April 2013, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6888>.
[RFC6939] Halwasia, G., Bhandari, S., and W. Dec, "Client Link-Layer
Address Option in DHCPv6", RFC 6939, DOI 10.17487/RFC6939,
May 2013, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6939>.
[RFC6964] Templin, F., "Operational Guidance for IPv6 Deployment in
IPv4 Sites Using the Intra-Site Automatic Tunnel
Addressing Protocol (ISATAP)", RFC 6964,
DOI 10.17487/RFC6964, May 2013,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6964>.
[RFC6967] Boucadair, M., Touch, J., Levis, P., and R. Penno,
"Analysis of Potential Solutions for Revealing a Host
Identifier (HOST_ID) in Shared Address Deployments",
RFC 6967, DOI 10.17487/RFC6967, June 2013,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6967>.
[RFC6980] Gont, F., "Security Implications of IPv6 Fragmentation
with IPv6 Neighbor Discovery", RFC 6980,
DOI 10.17487/RFC6980, August 2013,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6980>.
[RFC7010] Liu, B., Jiang, S., Carpenter, B., Venaas, S., and W.
George, "IPv6 Site Renumbering Gap Analysis", RFC 7010,
DOI 10.17487/RFC7010, September 2013,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7010>.
[RFC7011] Claise, B., Ed., Trammell, B., Ed., and P. Aitken,
"Specification of the IP Flow Information Export (IPFIX)
Protocol for the Exchange of Flow Information", STD 77,
RFC 7011, DOI 10.17487/RFC7011, September 2013,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7011>.
[RFC7012] Claise, B., Ed. and B. Trammell, Ed., "Information Model
for IP Flow Information Export (IPFIX)", RFC 7012,
DOI 10.17487/RFC7012, September 2013,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7012>.
[RFC7039] Wu, J., Bi, J., Bagnulo, M., Baker, F., and C. Vogt, Ed.,
"Source Address Validation Improvement (SAVI) Framework",
RFC 7039, DOI 10.17487/RFC7039, October 2013,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7039>.
[RFC7045] Carpenter, B. and S. Jiang, "Transmission and Processing
of IPv6 Extension Headers", RFC 7045,
DOI 10.17487/RFC7045, December 2013,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7045>.
[RFC7084] Singh, H., Beebee, W., Donley, C., and B. Stark, "Basic
Requirements for IPv6 Customer Edge Routers", RFC 7084,
DOI 10.17487/RFC7084, November 2013,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7084>.
[RFC7112] Gont, F., Manral, V., and R. Bonica, "Implications of
Oversized IPv6 Header Chains", RFC 7112,
DOI 10.17487/RFC7112, January 2014,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7112>.
[RFC7113] Gont, F., "Implementation Advice for IPv6 Router
Advertisement Guard (RA-Guard)", RFC 7113,
DOI 10.17487/RFC7113, February 2014,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7113>.
[RFC7123] Gont, F. and W. Liu, "Security Implications of IPv6 on
IPv4 Networks", RFC 7123, DOI 10.17487/RFC7123, February
2014, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7123>.
[RFC7166] Bhatia, M., Manral, V., and A. Lindem, "Supporting
Authentication Trailer for OSPFv3", RFC 7166,
DOI 10.17487/RFC7166, March 2014,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7166>.
[RFC7217] Gont, F., "A Method for Generating Semantically Opaque
Interface Identifiers with IPv6 Stateless Address
Autoconfiguration (SLAAC)", RFC 7217,
DOI 10.17487/RFC7217, April 2014,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7217>.
[RFC7359] Gont, F., "Layer 3 Virtual Private Network (VPN) Tunnel
Traffic Leakages in Dual-Stack Hosts/Networks", RFC 7359,
DOI 10.17487/RFC7359, August 2014,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7359>.
[RFC7381] Chittimaneni, K., Chown, T., Howard, L., Kuarsingh, V.,
Pouffary, Y., and E. Vyncke, "Enterprise IPv6 Deployment
Guidelines", RFC 7381, DOI 10.17487/RFC7381, October 2014,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7381>.
[RFC7404] Behringer, M. and E. Vyncke, "Using Only Link-Local
Addressing inside an IPv6 Network", RFC 7404,
DOI 10.17487/RFC7404, November 2014,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7404>.
[RFC7422] Donley, C., Grundemann, C., Sarawat, V., Sundaresan, K.,
and O. Vautrin, "Deterministic Address Mapping to Reduce
Logging in Carrier-Grade NAT Deployments", RFC 7422,
DOI 10.17487/RFC7422, December 2014,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7422>.
[RFC7454] Durand, J., Pepelnjak, I., and G. Doering, "BGP Operations
and Security", BCP 194, RFC 7454, DOI 10.17487/RFC7454,
February 2015, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7454>.
[RFC7513] Bi, J., Wu, J., Yao, G., and F. Baker, "Source Address
Validation Improvement (SAVI) Solution for DHCP",
RFC 7513, DOI 10.17487/RFC7513, May 2015,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7513>.
[RFC7526] Troan, O. and B. Carpenter, Ed., "Deprecating the Anycast
Prefix for 6to4 Relay Routers", BCP 196, RFC 7526,
DOI 10.17487/RFC7526, May 2015,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7526>.
[RFC7552] Asati, R., Pignataro, C., Raza, K., Manral, V., and R.
Papneja, "Updates to LDP for IPv6", RFC 7552,
DOI 10.17487/RFC7552, June 2015,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7552>.
[RFC7597] Troan, O., Ed., Dec, W., Li, X., Bao, C., Matsushima, S.,
Murakami, T., and T. Taylor, Ed., "Mapping of Address and
Port with Encapsulation (MAP-E)", RFC 7597,
DOI 10.17487/RFC7597, July 2015,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7597>.
[RFC7599] Li, X., Bao, C., Dec, W., Ed., Troan, O., Matsushima, S.,
and T. Murakami, "Mapping of Address and Port using
Translation (MAP-T)", RFC 7599, DOI 10.17487/RFC7599, July
2015, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7599>.
[RFC7610] Gont, F., Liu, W., and G. Van de Velde, "DHCPv6-Shield:
Protecting against Rogue DHCPv6 Servers", BCP 199,
RFC 7610, DOI 10.17487/RFC7610, August 2015,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7610>.
[RFC7707] Gont, F. and T. Chown, "Network Reconnaissance in IPv6
Networks", RFC 7707, DOI 10.17487/RFC7707, March 2016,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7707>.
[RFC7721] Cooper, A., Gont, F., and D. Thaler, "Security and Privacy
Considerations for IPv6 Address Generation Mechanisms",
RFC 7721, DOI 10.17487/RFC7721, March 2016,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7721>.
[RFC7772] Yourtchenko, A. and L. Colitti, "Reducing Energy
Consumption of Router Advertisements", BCP 202, RFC 7772,
DOI 10.17487/RFC7772, February 2016,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7772>.
[RFC7785] Vinapamula, S. and M. Boucadair, "Recommendations for
Prefix Binding in the Context of Softwire Dual-Stack
Lite", RFC 7785, DOI 10.17487/RFC7785, February 2016,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7785>.
[RFC7824] Krishnan, S., Mrugalski, T., and S. Jiang, "Privacy
Considerations for DHCPv6", RFC 7824,
DOI 10.17487/RFC7824, May 2016,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7824>.
[RFC7844] Huitema, C., Mrugalski, T., and S. Krishnan, "Anonymity
Profiles for DHCP Clients", RFC 7844,
DOI 10.17487/RFC7844, May 2016,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7844>.
[RFC7857] Penno, R., Perreault, S., Boucadair, M., Ed., Sivakumar,
S., and K. Naito, "Updates to Network Address Translation
(NAT) Behavioral Requirements", BCP 127, RFC 7857,
DOI 10.17487/RFC7857, April 2016,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7857>.
[RFC7872] Gont, F., Linkova, J., Chown, T., and W. Liu,
"Observations on the Dropping of Packets with IPv6
Extension Headers in the Real World", RFC 7872,
DOI 10.17487/RFC7872, June 2016,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7872>.
[RFC7915] Bao, C., Li, X., Baker, F., Anderson, T., and F. Gont,
"IP/ICMP Translation Algorithm", RFC 7915,
DOI 10.17487/RFC7915, June 2016,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7915>.
[RFC7934] Colitti, L., Cerf, V., Cheshire, S., and D. Schinazi,
"Host Address Availability Recommendations", BCP 204,
RFC 7934, DOI 10.17487/RFC7934, July 2016,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7934>.
[RFC8040] Bierman, A., Bjorklund, M., and K. Watsen, "RESTCONF
Protocol", RFC 8040, DOI 10.17487/RFC8040, January 2017,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8040>.
[RFC8064] Gont, F., Cooper, A., Thaler, D., and W. Liu,
"Recommendation on Stable IPv6 Interface Identifiers",
RFC 8064, DOI 10.17487/RFC8064, February 2017,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8064>.
[RFC8177] Lindem, A., Ed., Qu, Y., Yeung, D., Chen, I., and J.
Zhang, "YANG Data Model for Key Chains", RFC 8177,
DOI 10.17487/RFC8177, June 2017,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8177>.
[RFC8190] Bonica, R., Cotton, M., Haberman, B., and L. Vegoda,
"Updates to the Special-Purpose IP Address Registries",
BCP 153, RFC 8190, DOI 10.17487/RFC8190, June 2017,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8190>.
[RFC8210] Bush, R. and R. Austein, "The Resource Public Key
Infrastructure (RPKI) to Router Protocol, Version 1",
RFC 8210, DOI 10.17487/RFC8210, September 2017,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8210>.
[RFC8273] Brzozowski, J. and G. Van de Velde, "Unique IPv6 Prefix
per Host", RFC 8273, DOI 10.17487/RFC8273, December 2017,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8273>.
[RFC8343] Bjorklund, M., "A YANG Data Model for Interface
Management", RFC 8343, DOI 10.17487/RFC8343, March 2018,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8343>.
[RFC8344] Bjorklund, M., "A YANG Data Model for IP Management",
RFC 8344, DOI 10.17487/RFC8344, March 2018,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8344>.
[RFC8415] Mrugalski, T., Siodelski, M., Volz, B., Yourtchenko, A.,
Richardson, M., Jiang, S., Lemon, T., and T. Winters,
"Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol for IPv6 (DHCPv6)",
RFC 8415, DOI 10.17487/RFC8415, November 2018,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8415>.
[RFC8504] Chown, T., Loughney, J., and T. Winters, "IPv6 Node
Requirements", BCP 220, RFC 8504, DOI 10.17487/RFC8504,
January 2019, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8504>.
[RFC8520] Lear, E., Droms, R., and D. Romascanu, "Manufacturer Usage
Description Specification", RFC 8520,
DOI 10.17487/RFC8520, March 2019,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8520>.
[RFC8541] Litkowski, S., Decraene, B., and M. Horneffer, "Impact of
Shortest Path First (SPF) Trigger and Delay Strategies on
IGP Micro-loops", RFC 8541, DOI 10.17487/RFC8541, March
2019, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8541>.
[RFC8981] Gont, F., Krishnan, S., Narten, T., and R. Draves,
"Temporary Address Extensions for Stateless Address
Autoconfiguration in IPv6", RFC 8981,
DOI 10.17487/RFC8981, February 2021,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8981>.
[SCANNING] Barnes, R., Altmann, R., and D. Kerr, "Mapping the Great
Void - Smarter scanning for IPv6", February 2012,
<http://www.caida.org/workshops/isma/1202/slides/
aims1202_rbarnes.pdf>.
[WEBER_VPN]
Weber, J., "Dynamic IPv6 Prefix - Problems and VPNs",
March 2018, <https://blog.webernetz.net/wp-
content/uploads/2018/03/TR18-Johannes-Weber-Dynamic-IPv6-
Prefix-Problems-and-VPNs.pdf>.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank the following people for their useful
comments (in alphabetical order): Mikael Abrahamsson, Fred Baker,
Mustafa Suha Botsali, Mohamed Boucadair, Brian Carpenter, Tim Chown,
Lorenzo Colitti, Roman Danyliw (IESG Review), Markus de Bruen, Lars
Eggert (IESG review), Tobias Fiebig, Fernando Gont, Jeffry Handal,
Lee Howard, Benjamin Kaduk (IESG review), Panos Kampanakis, Erik
Kline, Jouni Korhonen, Warren Kumari (IESG review), Ted Lemon, Mark
Lentczner, Acee Lindem (and his detailed nits), Jen Linkova (and her
detailed review), Gyan S. Mishra (the Document Shepherd), Jordi
Palet, Alvaro Retana (IESG review), Zaheduzzaman Sarker (IESG
review), Bob Sleigh, Donald Smith, Tarko Tikan, Ole Troan, and Bernie
Volz.
Authors' Addresses
Éric Vyncke
Cisco
De Kleetlaan 6a
1831 Diegem
Belgium
Phone: +32 2 778 4677
Email: evyncke@cisco.com
Kiran Kumar Chittimaneni
Email: kk.chittimaneni@gmail.com
Merike Kaeo
Double Shot Security
3518 Fremont Ave N 363
Seattle, 98103
United States of America
Phone: +12066696394
Email: merike@doubleshotsecurity.com
Enno Rey
ERNW
Carl-Bosch-Str. 4
69115 Heidelberg Baden-Wuertemberg
Germany