Secure Neighbor Discovery

Last updated

The Secure Neighbor Discovery (SEND) protocol is a security extension of the Neighbor Discovery Protocol (NDP) in IPv6 defined in RFC 3971 and updated by RFC 6494.

Contents

The Neighbor Discovery Protocol (NDP) is responsible in IPv6 for discovery of other network nodes on the local link, to determine the link layer addresses of other nodes, and to find available routers, and maintain reachability information about the paths to other active neighbor nodes (RFC 4861). NDP is insecure [1] and susceptible to malicious interference. It is the intent of SEND to provide an alternate mechanism for securing NDP with a cryptographic method that is independent of IPsec, the original and inherent method of securing IPv6 communications.

SEND uses Cryptographically Generated Addresses (CGA) and other new NDP options for the ICMPv6 packet types used in NDP.

SEND was updated to use the Resource Public Key Infrastructure (RPKI) by RFC 6494 and RFC 6495 which define use of a SEND Certificate Profile utilizing a modified RFC 6487 RPKI Certificate Profile which must include a single RFC 3779 IP Address Delegation extension.

There have been concerns with algorithm agility vis-à-vis attacks on hash functions used by SEND expressed in RFC 6273, as CGA currently uses the SHA-1 hash algorithm and PKIX certificates and does not provide support for alternative hash algorithms.

Implementations

See also

Related Research Articles

The Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) is a network management protocol used on Internet Protocol (IP) networks for automatically assigning IP addresses and other communication parameters to devices connected to the network using a client–server architecture.

IPv6 Version 6 of the Internet Protocol

Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) is the most recent version of the Internet Protocol (IP), the communications protocol that provides an identification and location system for computers on networks and routes traffic across the Internet. IPv6 was developed by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) to deal with the long-anticipated problem of IPv4 address exhaustion. IPv6 is intended to replace IPv4. In December 1998, IPv6 became a Draft Standard for the IETF, who subsequently ratified it as an Internet Standard on 14 July 2017.

In computing, Internet Protocol Security (IPsec) is a secure network protocol suite that authenticates and encrypts the packets of data to provide secure encrypted communication between two computers over an Internet Protocol network. It is used in virtual private networks (VPNs).

The Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) is a communication protocol used for discovering the link layer address, such as a MAC address, associated with a given internet layer address, typically an IPv4 address. This mapping is a critical function in the Internet protocol suite. ARP was defined in 1982 by RFC 826, which is Internet Standard STD 37.

IP fragmentation

IP fragmentation is an Internet Protocol (IP) process that breaks packets into smaller pieces (fragments), so that the resulting pieces can pass through a link with a smaller maximum transmission unit (MTU) than the original packet size. The fragments are reassembled by the receiving host.

Mobile IP is an Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) standard communications protocol that is designed to allow mobile device users to move from one network to another while maintaining a permanent IP address. Mobile IP for IPv4 is described in IETF RFC 5944, and extensions are defined in IETF RFC 4721. Mobile IPv6, the IP mobility implementation for the next generation of the Internet Protocol, IPv6, is described in RFC 6275.

In computer networking, the ICMP Internet Router Discovery Protocol (IRDP), also called the Internet Router Discovery Protocol, is a protocol for computer hosts to discover the presence and location of routers on their IPv4 local area network. Router discovery is useful for accessing computer systems on other nonlocal area networks. The IRDP is defined by the IETF RFC 1256 standard, with the Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) upon which it is based defined in IETF RFC 792. IRDP eliminates the need to manually configure routing information.

The Host Identity Protocol (HIP) is a host identification technology for use on Internet Protocol (IP) networks, such as the Internet. The Internet has two main name spaces, IP addresses and the Domain Name System. HIP separates the end-point identifier and locator roles of IP addresses. It introduces a Host Identity (HI) name space, based on a public key security infrastructure.

A Cryptographically Generated Address (CGA) is an Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6) address that has a host identifier computed from a cryptographic hash function. This procedure is a method for binding a public signature key to an IPv6 address in the Secure Neighbor Discovery Protocol (SEND).

The Neighbor Discovery Protocol is a protocol in the Internet protocol suite used with Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6). It operates at the link layer of the Internet model, and is responsible for gathering various information required for internet communication, including the configuration of local connections and the domain name servers and gateways used to communicate with more distant systems.

Internet Control Message Protocol version 6 (ICMPv6) is the implementation of the Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) for Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6). ICMPv6 is an integral part of IPv6 and performs error reporting and diagnostic functions.

6LoWPAN is an acronym of IPv6 over Low -Power Wireless Personal Area Networks. 6LoWPAN is the name of a concluded working group in the Internet area of the IETF.

In computer networking, a link-local address is a network address that is valid only for communications within the network segment or the broadcast domain that the host is connected to. Link-local addresses are most often assigned automatically with a process known as stateless address autoconfiguration or link-local address autoconfiguration, also known as automatic private IP addressing (APIPA) or auto-IP.

The internet layer is a group of internetworking methods, protocols, and specifications in the Internet protocol suite that are used to transport network packets from the originating host across network boundaries; if necessary, to the destination host specified by an IP address. The internet layer derives its name from its function facilitating internetworking, which is the concept of connecting multiple networks with each other through gateways.

The Neighbor Discovery Protocol Monitor (NDPMon) is a diagnostic software application used by network administrators for monitoring ICMPv6 packets in Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) networks. NDPMon observes the local network for anomalies in the function of nodes using Neighbor Discovery Protocol (NDP) messages, especially during the Stateless Address Autoconfiguration. When an NDP message is flagged, it notifies the administrator by writing to the syslog or by sending an email report. It may also execute a user-defined script. For IPv6, NDPMon is an equivalent of Arpwatch for IPv4, and has similar basic features with added attacks detection.

IPv6 address Label to identify a network interface of a computer or other network node

An Internet Protocol Version 6 address is a numeric label that is used to identify and locate a network interface of a computer or a network node participating in an computer network using IPv6. IP addresses are included in the packet header to indicate the source and the destination of each packet. The IP address of the destination is used to make decisions about routing IP packets to other networks.

An IPv6 packet is the smallest message entity exchanged using Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6).

A Solicited-Node multicast address is an IPv6 multicast address used by the Neighbor Discovery Protocol to verify whether a given IPv6 address is already used by the local-link or not, through a process called DAD. This allows NDP to assign IPv6 addresses to hosts using SLAAC without the risk of assigning addresses already in use. The Solicited-Node multicast addresses are generated from the host's IPv6 unicast or anycast address, and each interface must have a Solicited-Node multicast address associated with it.

Resource Public Key Infrastructure (RPKI), also known as Resource Certification, is a specialized public key infrastructure (PKI) framework to support improved security for the Internet's BGP routing infrastructure.

In computer networking, the link layer is the lowest layer in the Internet protocol suite, the networking architecture of the Internet. The link layer is the group of methods and communications protocols confined to the link that a host is physically connected to. The link is the physical and logical network component used to interconnect hosts or nodes in the network and a link protocol is a suite of methods and standards that operate only between adjacent network nodes of a network segment.

References

  1. Holding IPv6 Neighbor Discovery to a Higher Standard of Security, community.infoblox.com, 2.10.2015