TCP Maintenance and Minor                                        F. Gont
Extensions (tcpm)                                                UTN/FRH
Internet-Draft                                         December 22, 2004
Expires: June 22, 2005


                        ICMP attacks against TCP
                  draft-gont-tcpm-icmp-attacks-03.txt

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Copyright Notice

   Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2004).

Abstract

   This document discusses the use of the Internet Control Message
   Protocol (ICMP) to perform a variety of attacks against the
   Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and other similar protocols.  It
   proposes several counter-measures to eliminate or minimize the impact
   of these attacks.



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Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  3
   2.  Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  3
     2.1   The Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) . . . . . . .  3
       2.1.1   ICMP for IP version 4 (ICMP) . . . . . . . . . . . . .  4
       2.1.2   ICMP for IP version 6 (ICMPv6) . . . . . . . . . . . .  5
     2.2   Handling of ICMP errors  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  5
   3.  ICMP attacks against TCP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  6
   4.  Constraints in the possible solutions  . . . . . . . . . . . .  6
   5.  General counter-measures against ICMP attacks  . . . . . . . .  7
     5.1   TCP sequence number checking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  7
     5.2   TCP acknowledgement number checking  . . . . . . . . . . .  8
     5.3   Port randomization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  8
     5.4   Authentication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  8
     5.5   Filtering ICMP errors based on the ICMP payload  . . . . .  9
   6.  Blind connection-reset attacks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  9
     6.1   Description  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  9
     6.2   Attack-specific counter-measures . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
       6.2.1   Changing the reaction to hard errors . . . . . . . . . 10
       6.2.2   Delaying the connection-reset  . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
   7.  Blind throughput-reduction attacks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
     7.1   ICMP Source Quench attack  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
       7.1.1   Description  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
       7.1.2   Attack-specific counter-measures . . . . . . . . . . . 12
     7.2   ICMP attack against the PMTU Discovery mechanism . . . . . 12
       7.2.1   Description  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
       7.2.2   Attack-specific counter-measures . . . . . . . . . . . 14
   8.  Future work  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
   9.  Security Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
   10.   Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
   11.   References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
   11.1  Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
   11.2  Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
       Author's Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
   A.  The counter-measure for the PMTUD attack in action . . . . . . 19
     A.1   Normal operation for bulk transfers  . . . . . . . . . . . 20
     A.2   Operation during Path-MTU changes  . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
     A.3   Idle connection being attacked . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
     A.4   Active connection being attacked after discovery of
           the Path-MTU . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
   B.  An attack that could still succeed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
   C.  Advice and guidance to vendors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
   D.  Changes from previous versions of the draft  . . . . . . . . . 26
     D.1   Changes from draft-gont-tcpm-icmp-attacks-02 . . . . . . . 26
     D.2   Changes from draft-gont-tcpm-icmp-attacks-01 . . . . . . . 27
     D.3   Changes from draft-gont-tcpm-icmp-attacks-00 . . . . . . . 27
       Intellectual Property and Copyright Statements . . . . . . . . 28



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1.  Introduction

   Recently, awareness has been raised about several threats against the
   TCP [1] protocol, which include blind connection-reset attacks [12].
   These attacks are based on sending forged TCP segments to any of the
   TCP endpoints, requiring the attacker to be able to guess the
   four-tuple that identifies the connection to be attacked.

   While these attacks were known by the research community, they were
   considered to be unfeasible.  However, increases in bandwidth
   availability, and the use of larger TCP windows [13] have made these
   attacks feasible.  Several general solutions have been proposed to
   either eliminate or minimize the impact of these attacks
   [14][15][16].  For protecting BGP sessions, specifically, a
   counter-measure had already been documented in [17], which defines a
   new TCP option that allows a sending TCP to include a MD5 [18]
   signature in each transmitted segment.

   All these counter-measures address attacks that require an attacker
   to send forged TCP segments to the attacked host.  However, there is
   still a possibility for performing a number of attacks against the
   TCP protocol, by means of ICMP [2].  These attacks include, among
   others, blind connection-reset attacks.

   This document aims to raise awareness of the use of ICMP to perform a
   number of attacks against TCP, and proposes several counter-measures
   that can eliminate or minimize the impact of these attacks.

   The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
   "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this
   document are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119 [3].

2.  Background

2.1  The Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP)

   The Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) is used in the Internet
   Architecture to perform the fault-isolation function, that is, the
   group of actions that hosts and routers take to determine that there
   is some network failure [19].

   When an intermediate router detects a network problem while trying to
   forward an IP packet, it will usually send an ICMP error message to
   the source host, to raise awareness of the network problem.  In the
   same way, there are a number of cases in which an end-system may
   generate an ICMP error message when it finds a problem while
   processing a datagram.  These error messages are notified to the
   corresponding transport-protocol instance.



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   When the transport protocol is notified of the error condition, it
   will perform a fault recovery function.  That is, it will try to
   survive the network failure.

   In the case of TCP, the typical fault recovery policy is as follows:

   o  If the network problem being reported is a hard error, abort the
      corresponding connection.

   o  If the network problem being reported is a soft error, just record
      this information, and repeatedly retransmit the segment until
      either it gets acknowledged, or the connection times out.

   Some stacks honor hard errors only for connections in any of the
   synchronized states (ESTABLISHED, FIN-WAIT-1, FIN-WAIT-2, CLOSE-WAIT,
   CLOSING, LAST-ACK or TIME-WAIT).

2.1.1  ICMP for IP version 4 (ICMP)

   [2] specifies the Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) to be used
   with the Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4).  It defines, among other
   things, a number of error messages that can be used by end-systems
   and intermediate systems to report network errors to the sending
   host.

   The Host Requirements RFC [4] states that ICMP error messages of type
   3 (Destination Unreachable) codes 2 (protocol unreachable), 3 (port
   unreachable), and 4 (fragmentation needed and DF bit set) should be
   considered hard errors.  Thus, any of these ICMP messages could
   elicit a connection abort.

   The ICMP specification also defines the ICMP Source Quench message
   (type 4, code 0), which is meant to provide a mechanism for flow
   control and congestion control.  The Requirements for IP Version 4
   Routers RFC [5], however, states that experience has shown this ICMP
   message is ineffective for handling these issues.

   [6] defines a mechanism called "Path MTU Discovery" (PMTUD), which
   makes use of ICMP error messages of type 3 (Destination Unreachable),
   code 4 (fragmentation needed and DF bit set) to allow hosts to
   determine the MTU of an arbitrary internet path.  For obvious
   reasons, those systems implementing the Path MTU Discovery (PMTUD)
   mechanism do not treat ICMP error messages of type 3 code 4 as hard
   errors.

   Appendix D of [7] provides information about which ICMP error
   messages are produced by hosts, intermediate routers, or both.




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2.1.2  ICMP for IP version 6 (ICMPv6)

   [8] specifies the Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMPv6) to be
   used with the Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) [9].

   Even though ICMPv6 didn't exist when [4] was written, one could
   extrapolate the concept of "hard errors" to ICMPv6 Type 1
   (Destination Unreachable) codes 1 (communication with destination
   administratively prohibited) and 4 (port unreachable).  Thus, any of
   these messages could elicit a connection abort.

   ICMPv6 defines the "Packet Too Big" (type 2, code 0) error message,
   that is analogous to the ICMP "fragmentation needed and DF bit set"
   (type 3, code 4) error message.  For IPv6, intermediate systems do
   not fragment IP packets.  Thus, there is an implicit "don't fragment"
   bit set in every IPv6 datagram sent on a network.  Therefore, hosts
   do not treat ICMPv6 "Packet Too Big" messages as a hard errors, but
   use them to discover the MTU of the corresponding internet path, as
   part of the Path MTU Discovery mechanism for IP Version 6 [10].

   Appendix D of [7] provides information about which ICMPv6 error
   messages are produced by hosts, intermediate routers, or both.

2.2  Handling of ICMP errors

   The Host Requirements RFC [4] states that a TCP MUST act on an ICMP
   error message passed up from the IP layer, directing it to the
   connection that created the error.

   In order to allow ICMP messages to be demultiplexed by the receiving
   host, part of the original packet that elicited the message is
   included in the payload of the ICMP error message.  Thus, the
   receiving host can use that information to match the ICMP error to
   the instance of the transport protocol that elicited it.

   Neither the Host Requirements RFC [4] nor the original TCP
   specification [1] recommend any security checks on the received ICMP
   messages.  Thus, as long as the ICMP payload contains the correct
   four-tuple that identifies the communication instance, it will be
   processed by the corresponding transport-protocol instance, and the
   corresponding action will be performed.

   Therefore, an attacker could send a forged ICMP message to the
   attacked host, and, as long as he is able to guess the four-tuple
   that identifies the communication instance to be attacked, he can use
   ICMP to perform a variety of attacks.

   As discussed in [12], there are a number of scenarios in which an



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   attacker may be able to know or guess this four-tuple.  Furthermore,
   it must be noted that most Internet services use the so-called
   "well-known" ports, so that only the client port would need to be
   guessed.  In the event that an attacker had no knowledge about the
   range of port numbers used by clients, this would mean that an
   attacker would need to send, at most, 65536 packets to perform any of
   the attacks described in this document.

   It is clear that security checks should be performed on the received
   ICMP error messages, to mitigate the impact of the attacks described
   in this document.

3.  ICMP attacks against TCP

   ICMP messages can be used to perform a variety of attacks.  These
   attacks have been discussed by the research community to a large
   extent.

   Some TCP/IP implementations have added security checks on the
   received ICMP error messages to minimize the impact of these attacks.
   However, as there has not been any official proposal about what would
   be the best way to deal with these attacks, these security checks
   have not been widely implemented.

   Section 4 of this document discusses the constraints in the general
   counter-measures that can be implemented against the attacks
   described in this document.  Section 5 proposes several general
   counter-measures that apply to all the ICMP attacks described in this
   document.  Finally, Section 6 and Section 7 discuss a variety of ICMP
   attacks that can be performed against TCP, and propose
   attack-specific counter-measures that eliminate or mitigate their
   impact.  These attack-specific counter-measures are meant to be
   additional counter-measures to the ones proposed in Section 5.  In
   particular, all TCP implementations SHOULD perform the TCP sequence
   number checking described in Section 5.1.

4.  Constraints in the possible solutions

   For ICMPv4, [2] states that the internet header plus the first 64
   bits of the packet that elicited the ICMP message are to be included
   in the payload of the ICMP error message.  Thus, it is assumed that
   all data needed to identify a transport protocol instance and process
   the ICMP error message is contained in the first 64 bits of the
   transport protocol header.  [4] states that "the Internet header and
   at least the first 8 data octets of the datagram that triggered the
   error" are to be included in the payload of ICMP error messages, and
   that "more than 8 octets MAY be sent", thus suggesting that
   implementations may include more data from the original packet than



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   that required by the original ICMP specification.  The Requirements
   for IP Version 4 Routers RFC [5] states that ICMP error messages
   "SHOULD contain as much of the original datagram as possible without
   the length of the ICMP datagram exceeding 576 bytes".

   Thus, for ICMP messages generated by hosts, we can only expect to get
   the entire IP header of the original packet, plus the first 64 bits
   of its payload.  For TCP, that means that the only fields that will
   be included are: the source port number, the destination port number,
   and the 32-bit TCP sequence number.  This clearly imposes a
   constraint on the possible security checks that can be performed, as
   there is not much information avalable on which to perform them.
   While there exists a proposal to recommend hosts to include more data
   from the original datagram in the payload of ICMP error messages
   [20], and some TCP/IP implementations already do this, we cannot yet
   propose any work-around based on checks performed on any data past
   the first 64 bits of the payload of the original IP datagram that
   elicited the ICMP error message.  Thus, the only check that can be
   performed on the ICMP error message is that of the TCP sequence
   number contained in the payload.

   As discussed above, for those ICMP error messages generated by
   routers, we can expect to receive much more octets from the original
   packet than just the entire IP header and the first 64 bits of the
   transport protocol header.  Therefore, not only can hosts check the
   TCP sequence number contained in the payload of the ICMP error
   message, but they can also perform further checks such as checking
   the TCP acknowledgement number, as discussed in Section 5.2.

   For ICMPv6, the payload of ICMPv6 error messages includes as many
   octets from the IPv6 packet that elicited the ICMPv6 error message as
   will fit without making the resulting ICMPv6 packet exceed the
   minimum IPv6 MTU (1280 octets) [8].  Thus, further checks (as those
   described above) can be performed on the received ICMP error
   messages.

5.  General counter-measures against ICMP attacks

   There are a number of counter-measures that can be implemented to
   eliminate or mitigate the impact of the attacks discussed in this
   document.  Rather than being alternative counter-measures, they can
   be implemented together to increase the protection against these
   attacks.  In particular, all TCP implementations SHOULD perform the
   TCP sequence number checking described in Section 5.1.

5.1  TCP sequence number checking

   TCP SHOULD check that the TCP sequence number contained in the



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   payload of the ICMP error message is within the range SND.UNA =<
   SEG.SEQ < SND.NXT.  This means that the sequence number should be
   within the range of the data already sent but not yet acknowledged.
   If an ICMP error message does not pass this check, it SHOULD be
   discarded.

   Even if an attacker were able to guess the four-tuple that identifies
   the TCP connection, this additional check would reduce the
   possibility of considering a spoofed ICMP packet as valid to
   Flight_Size/2^^32 (where Flight_Size is the number of data bytes
   already sent to the remote peer, but not yet acknowledged [21]).  For
   connections in the SYN-SENT or SYN-RECEIVED states, this would reduce
   the possibility of considering a spoofed ICMP packet as valid to
   1/2^^32.  For a TCP endpoint with no data "in flight", this would
   completely eliminate the possibility of success of these attacks.

5.2  TCP acknowledgement number checking

   As discussed in Section 4, for those ICMP error messages that are
   generated by intermediate routers, additional checks can be
   performed.  TCP SHOULD check that the TCP Acknowledgement number
   contained in the payload of the ICMP error message is withing the
   range SEG.ACK <= RCV.NXT.  This means that the TCP Acknowledgement
   number should correspond to data that have already been acknowledged.

   This would reduce the possibility of considering a spoofed ICMP
   packet as valid by a factor of two.

5.3  Port randomization

   As discussed in the previous sections, in order to perform any of the
   attacks described in this document, an attacker needs to guess (or
   know) the four-tuple that identifies the connection to be attacked.
   Randomizing the ephemeral ports used by the clients would make it
   harder for an attacker to perform any of the attacks discussed in
   this document.

   [22] discusses a number of algorithms to randomize the ephemeral
   ports used by clients.

   Also, a proposal exists to enable TCP to reassign a well-known port
   number to a random value [23].

5.4  Authentication

   Hosts could require ICMP error messages to be authenticated [7], in
   order to act upon them.  However, while this requirement could make
   sense for those ICMP error messages sent by hosts, it would not be



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   feasible for those ICMP error messages generated by intermediate
   routers.

   [7] contains a discussion on the authentication of ICMP messages.

5.5  Filtering ICMP errors based on the ICMP payload

   The source address of ICMP error messages does not need to be spoofed
   to perform the attacks described in this document.  Thus, simple
   filtering based on the source address of ICMP error messages does not
   serve as a counter-measure against these attacks.  However, a more
   advanced packet filtering could be used as a counter-measure.
   Systems performing such advanced filtering would look at the payload
   of the ICMP error messages, and would perform ingress and egress
   packet filtering based on the source IP address of the IP header
   contained in the payload of the ICMP error message.  As the source IP
   address contained in the payload of the ICMP error message does need
   to be spoofed to perform the attacks described in this document, this
   kind of advanced filtering would serve as a counter-measure against
   these attacks.

6.  Blind connection-reset attacks

6.1  Description

   The Host Requirements RFC [4] states that a host SHOULD abort the
   corresponding connection when receiving an ICMP error message that
   indicates a hard error.

   Thus, an attacker could use ICMP to perform a blind connection-reset
   attack.  That is, even being off-path, an attacker could reset any
   TCP connection taking place.  In order to perform such an attack, an
   attacker would send any ICMP error message that indicates a "hard
   error", to either of the two TCP endpoints of the connection.
   Because of TCP's fault recovery policy, the connection would be
   immediately aborted.

   As discussed in Section 2.2, all an attacker needs to know to perform
   such an attack is the socket pair that identifies the TCP connection
   to be attacked.  In some scenarios, the IP addresses and port numbers
   in use may be easily guessed or known to the attacker [12].

   Some stacks are known to extrapolate ICMP errors across TCP
   connections, increasing the impact of this attack, as a single ICMP
   packet could bring down all the TCP connections between the
   corresponding peers.

   There are some points to be considered about this type of attack:



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   o  The source address of the ICMP error message need not be forged.
      Thus, simple filtering based on the source address of ICMP packets
      would not serve as a counter-measure against this type of attack.

   o  Even if TCP itself were protected against the blind
      connection-reset attack described in [12] and [14], the type of
      attack described in this document could still succeed.


6.2  Attack-specific counter-measures

6.2.1  Changing the reaction to hard errors

   An analysis of the circumstances in which ICMP messages that indicate
   hard errors may be received can shed some light to minimize (or even
   eliminate) the impact of blind connection-reset attacks.

   ICMP type 3 (Destination Unreachable), code 2 (protocol unreachable)

      This ICMP error message indicates that the host sending the ICMP
      error message received a packet meant for a transport protocol it
      does not support.  For connection-oriented protocols such as TCP,
      one could expect to receive such an error as the result of a
      connection-establishment attempt.  However, it would be strange to
      get such an error during the life of a connection, as this would
      indicate that support for that transport protocol has been removed
      from the host sending the error message during the life of the
      corresponding connection.  Thus, it would be fair to treat ICMP
      protocol unreachable error messages as soft errors (or completely
      ignore them) if they are meant for connections that are in
      synchronized states.  For TCP, this means one would treat ICMP
      protocol unreachable error messages as soft errors (or completely
      ignore them) if they are meant for connections that are in the
      ESTABLISHED, FIN-WAIT-1, FIN-WAIT-2, CLOSE-WAIT, CLOSING, LAST-ACK
      or TIME-WAIT states.

   ICMP type 3 (Destination Unreachable), code 3 (port unreachable)

      This error message indicates that the host sending the ICMP error
      message received a packet meant for a socket (IP address, port
      number) on which there is no process listening.  Those transport
      protocols which have their own mechanisms for notifying this
      condition should not be receiving these error messages.  However,
      the Host Requirements RFC [4] states that even those transport
      protocols that have their own mechanism for notifying the sender
      that a port is unreachable MUST nevertheless accept an ICMP Port
      Unreachable for the same purpose.  For security reasons, it would
      be fair to treat ICMP port unreachable messages as soft errors (or



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      completely ignore them) when they are meant for protocols that
      have their own mechanism for reporting this error condition.

   ICMP type 3 (Destination Unreachable), code 4 (fragmentation needed
   and DF bit set)

      This error message indicates that an intermediate node needed to
      fragment a datagram, but the DF (Don't Fragment) bit in the IP
      header was set.  Those systems that do not implement the PMTUD
      mechanism should not be sending their IP packets with the DF bit
      set, and thus should not be receiving these ICMP error messages.
      Thus, it would be fair for them to completely ignore this ICMP
      error message.  On the other hand, and for obvious reasons, those
      systems implementing the Path-MTU Discovery (PMTUD) mechanism [6]
      should not abort the corresponding connection when such an ICMP
      error message is received.

   ICMPv6 type 1 (Destination Unreachable), code 1 (communication with
   destination administratively prohibited)

      This error message indicates that the destination is unreachable
      because of an administrative policy.  For connection-oriented
      protocols such as TCP, one could expect to receive such an error
      as the result of a connection-establishment attempt.  Receiving
      such an error for a connection in any of the synchronized states
      would mean that the administrative policy changed during the life
      of the connection.  Therefore, while it would be possible for a
      firewall to be reconfigured during the life of a connection, it
      would be fair, for security reasons, to ignore these messages for
      connections that are in the ESTABLISHED, FIN-WAIT-1, FIN-WAIT-2,
      CLOSE-WAIT, CLOSING, LAST-ACK or TIME-WAIT states.

   ICMPv6 type 1 (Destination Unreachable), code 4 (port unreachable)

      This error message is analogous to the ICMP type 3 (Destination
      Unreachable), code 3 (Port unreachable) error message discussed
      above.  Therefore, the same considerations apply.

   Finally, it is important to note that, as discussed in Section 6.1,
   hosts MUST NOT extrapolate ICMP errors across TCP connections.

6.2.2  Delaying the connection-reset

   An alternative counter-measure could be to delay the connection
   reset.  Rather than immediately aborting a connection, a TCP could
   abort a connection only after an ICMP error message indicating a hard
   error has been received a specified number of times, and the
   corresponding data have already been retransmitted more than some



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   specified number of times.

   For example, hosts could abort connections only after a fourth ICMP
   error message indicating a hard error is received, and the
   corresponding data have already been retransmitted more than six
   times.

   The rationale behind this proposed fix is that if a host can make
   forward progress on a connection, it can completely disregard the
   "hard errors" being indicated by the received ICMP error messages.

   While this counter-measure could be useful, we think that the
   counter-measure discussed in Section 6.2.1 is more simple to
   implement and provides increased protection against this type of
   attack.

7.  Blind throughput-reduction attacks

   The following subsections discuss a number of attacks that can be
   performed against TCP to reduce the throughput of a TCP connection.
   While these attacks do not reset the attacked TCP connections, they
   may reduce their throughput to such an extent that they may become
   practically unusable.

7.1  ICMP Source Quench attack

7.1.1  Description

   The Host requirements RFC states hosts MUST react to ICMP Source
   Quench messages by slowing transmission on the connection.  Thus, an
   attacker could send ICMP Source Quench (type 4, code 0) messages to a
   TCP endpoint to make it reduce the rate at which it sends data to the
   other party.  While this would not reset the connection, it would
   certainly degrade the performance of the data transfer taking place
   over it.

7.1.2  Attack-specific counter-measures

   The Host Requirements RFC [4] states that hosts MUST react to ICMP
   Source Quench messages by slowing transmission on the connection.
   However, as discussed in the Requirements for IP Version 4 Routers
   RFC [5], research seems to suggest ICMP Source Quench is an
   ineffective (and unfair) antidote for congestion.  Thus, we recommend
   hosts to completely ignore ICMP Source Quench messages.

7.2  ICMP attack against the PMTU Discovery mechanism





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7.2.1  Description

   When one IP host has a large amount of data to send to another host,
   the data will be transmitted as a series of IP datagrams.  It is
   usually preferable that these datagrams be of the largest size that
   does not require fragmentation anywhere along the path from the
   source to the destination.  This datagram size is referred to as the
   Path MTU (PMTU), and is equal to the minimum of the MTUs of each hop
   in the path [6].

   A technique called "Path MTU Discovery mechanism" (PMTUD) lets IP
   hosts determine the Path MTU of an arbitrary internet path.  [6] and
   [10] specify the PMTUD mechanism for IPv4 and IPv6, respectively.

   The PMTUD mechanism for IPv4 uses the Don't Fragment (DF) bit in the
   IP header to dynamically discover the Path MTU.  The basic idea
   behind the PMTUD mechanism is that a source host assumes that the MTU
   of the path is that of the first hop, and sends all its datagrams
   with the DF bit set.  If any of the datagrams is too large to be
   forwarded without fragmentation by some intermediate router, the
   router will discard the corresponding datagram, and will return an
   ICMP "Destination Unreachable" (type 3) "fragmentation neeed and DF
   set" (code 4) error message to sending host.  This message will
   report the MTU of the constricting hop, so that the sending host
   reduces the assumed Path-MTU.

   For IPv6, intermediate systems do not fragment packets.  Thus,
   there's an "implicit" DF bit set in every packet sent on a network.
   If any of the datagrams is too large to be forwarded without
   fragmentation by some intermediate router, the router will discard
   the corresponding datagram, and will return an ICMPv6 "Packet Too
   Big" (type 2, code 0) error message to sending host.  This message
   will report the MTU of the constricting hop, so that the sending host
   can reduce the assumed Path-MTU accordingly.

   As discussed in both [6] and [10], the PMTUD can be used to attack
   TCP.  An attacker could reduce the throughput of a TCP connection by
   sending forged ICMP "Destination Unreachable, fragmentation needed
   and DF set" packets (or their IPv6 counterpart) to the sending host,
   and making these packets report a low MTU.

   For IPv4, this reported Next-Hop MTU could be as low as 68 octets, as
   [11] requires every internet module to be able to forward a datagram
   of 68 octets without further fragmentation.  For IPv6, the reported
   Next-Hop MTU could be as low as 1280 octets (the minimum IPv6 MTU)
   [9].

   Thus, this attack could considerably readuce the throughput that can



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   be achieved with the attacked TCP connection.

7.2.2  Attack-specific counter-measures

   An analogous counter-measure to that described in Section 6.2.2 could
   be implemented to greatly minimize the impact of this attack.

   For IPv4, this would mean that upon receipt of an ICMP "fragmentation
   needed and DF bit set" error message, TCP would just record this
   information, and would honor it only when it had received a specified
   number of ICMP "fragmentation needed and DF bit set" messages, and
   provided the corresponding data had already been retransmitted a
   specified number of times.

   For IPv6, the same mechanism would be implemented for handling ICMPv6
   "Packet Too Big" error messages.

   While this policy would greatly mitigate the impact of the attack
   against the PMTUD mechanism, it would also mean that it might take
   TCP more time to discover the Path-MTU for a TCP connection.  This
   would be particularly annoying for connections that have just been
   established, as it might take TCP several transmission attempts (and
   the corresponding timeouts) until it discovers the PMTU for the
   corresponding connection.  Thus, this policy would increase the time
   it takes for data to begin to be received at the destination host.

   We would like to protect TCP from the attack against the PMTUD
   mechanism, while still allowing TCP to quickly determine the initial
   Path-MTU for a connection.

   To achieve both goals, we can divide the traditional PMTUD mechanism
   into two stages: Initial Path-MTU Discovery, and Path-MTU Update.

   The Initial Path-MTU Discovery stage is when TCP tries to send
   segments that are larger than the ones that have so far been sent for
   this connection.  That is, in the Initial Path-MTU Discovery stage
   TCP has no record of these large segments getting to the destination
   host, and thus it would be fair to believe the network when it
   reports that these packets are too large to reach the destination
   host without being fragmented.

   The Path-MTU Update stage is when TCP tries to send segments that are
   equal to or smaller than the ones that have already been sent and
   acknowledged for this connection.  During the Path-MTU Update stage,
   TCP already has knowledge of the estimated Path-MTU for the given
   connection.  Thus, it would be fair to be more cautious with the
   errors being reported by the network.




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   In order to allow TCP to distinguish segments performing Initial
   Path-MTU Discovery from those performing Path-MTU Update, a new
   variable should be introduced to TCP: maxsizeacked.

   This variable would hold the size (in octets) of the largest packet
   that has so far been sent and acknowledged for this connection.  It
   would be initialized to 68 (the minimum IPv4 MTU) when the underlying
   internet protocol is IPv4, and would be initialized to 1280 (the
   minimum IPv6 MTU) when the underlying internet protocol is IPv6.
   Whenever an acknowledgement for a packet larger than maxsizeacked
   octets is received, maxsizeacked should be set to the size of that
   acknowledged packet.

   Henceforth, we will refer to both ICMP "fragmentation needed and DF
   bit set" and ICMPv6 "Packet Too Big" messages as "ICMP Packet Too
   Big" messages.

   Upon receipt of an ICMP "Packet Too Big" error message, the Next-Hop
   MTU claimed by the ICMP message (henceforth "claimedmtu") would be
   compared with maxsizeacked.  If claimedmtu is equal to or larger than
   maxsizeacked, then TCP is supposed to be at the Initial Path-MTU
   Discovery stage, and thus the ICMP "Packet Too Big" error message
   should be honored.  That is, the assumed Path-MTU should be updated
   according to the Next-Hop MTU claimed in the ICMP error message.

   On the other hand, if claimedmtu is smaller than maxsizeacked, TCP is
   supposed to be in the Path-MTU Update stage.  At this stage, we
   should be more cautious with the errors being reported by the
   network, and will therefore delay the update of the assumed Path-MTU.

   To perform this delay, two new parameters should be introduced to
   TCP: MAXPKTTOOBIG, and MAXSEGRTO.  MAXPKTTOOBIG would specify the
   number of times an ICMP "Packet Too Big" must be received before it
   can be honored to change the Path-MTU.  MAXSEGRRTO would specify the
   number of times a given segment must timeout before an ICMP "Packet
   Too Big" error message can be honored.

   Two variables would be needed to implement the proposed fix:
   npkttoobig, and nsegrto.  npkttoobig would be initialized to zero,
   and would be incremented by one everytime a valid ICMP "Packet Too
   Big" error message is received.  It would be reset to zero everytime
   an ICMP "Packet Too Big" error message is honored to change the
   assumed Path-MTU for given internet path.  nsegrto would be
   initialized to zero, and would be incremented by one everytime the
   corresponding segment times out.

   Thus, the assumed Path-MTU for a given internet path would be changed
   when an ICMP "Packet Too Big" is received, provided npkttoobig >=



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   MAXPKTTOOBIG and nsegrto >= MAXSEGRTO.  When the assumed Path-MTU is
   updated, maxsizeacked should be set to claimedmtu, so as to allow the
   Path-MTU to be discovered quickly in the event the Path-MTU for the
   connection increases some time later.

   The rationale behind this proposed delay is that if there is progress
   on the connection, the ICMP "Packet Too Big" errors must be a false
   claim.

   MAXPKTTOOBIG can be set to any value greater than or equal to 1.
   MAXSEGRTO can be set, in principle, to any value greater than or
   equal to 0.

   Setting MAXPKTTOOBIG to 1 and MAXSEGRTO to 0 would make TCP perform
   the traditional PMTUD mechanism defined in [6] and [10].

   When the values chosen for MAXSEGRTO and MAXPKTTOOBIG are such that
   (MAXSEGRTO - MAXPKTTOOBIG) > 0, it somehow means the implementation
   is acknowledging that segments may be lost and routers may be
   rate-limiting their ICMP traffic.

   MAXPKTTOOBIG and MAXSEGRTO might be a function of the Next-Hop MTU
   claimed in the received ICMP "Packet Too Big" message.  That is,
   higher values for MAXPKTTOOBIG and MAXSEGRTO could be imposed when
   the received ICMP "Packet Too Big" message claims a Next-Hop MTU that
   is smaller some specified value.

   A MAXPKTTOOBIG of 1 and a MAXSEGRTO of 1 should provide enough
   protection for most cases.  In any case, implementations are free to
   choose higher values for any of these two constants.

   In the event a higher level of protection is desired at the expense
   of a higher delay in the discovery of the Path-MTU, an implementation
   could consider TCP to always be in the Path-MTU Update stage, thus
   always delaying the update of the assumed Path-MTU.

   Appendix A shows the proposed counter-measure in action.

   Appendix B describes an attack against the PMTUD mechanism that could
   still succeed, along with a counter-measure against it.  However,
   this attack is unfeasible, and in most cases, non-sensical.

   A mechanism that allows hosts to determine the Path-MTU of an
   arbitrary internet path without the use of ICMP has been is described
   in [24].






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8.  Future work

   The same considerations discussed in this document for TCP should be
   applied to other similar protocols.

9.  Security Considerations

   This document describes the use of ICMP error messages to perform a
   number of attacks against the TCP protocol, and proposes a number of
   counter-measures that either eliminate or reduce the impact of these
   attacks.

10.  Acknowledgements

   This document was inspired by Mika Liljeberg, while discussing some
   issues related to [25] by private e-mail.  The author would like to
   thank James Carlson, Alan Cox, Juan Fraschini, Markus Friedl,
   Guillermo Gont, Vivek Kakkar, Michael Kerrisk, Mika Liljeberg, David
   Miller, Miles Nordin, Eloy Paris, Kacheong Poon, Andrew Powell, and
   Pekka Savola for contributing many valuable comments.

   The author wishes to express deep and heartfelt gratitude to Jorge
   Oscar Gont and Nelida Garcia, for their precious motivation and
   guidance.

11.  References

11.1  Normative References

   [1]   Postel, J., "Transmission Control Protocol", STD 7, RFC 793,
         September 1981.

   [2]   Postel, J., "Internet Control Message Protocol", STD 5, RFC
         792, September 1981.

   [3]   Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement
         Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.

   [4]   Braden, R., "Requirements for Internet Hosts - Communication
         Layers", STD 3, RFC 1122, October 1989.

   [5]   Baker, F., "Requirements for IP Version 4 Routers", RFC 1812,
         June 1995.

   [6]   Mogul, J. and S. Deering, "Path MTU discovery", RFC 1191,
         November 1990.

   [7]   Kent, S. and R. Atkinson, "Security Architecture for the



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         Internet Protocol", RFC 2401, November 1998.

   [8]   Conta, A. and S. Deering, "Internet Control Message Protocol
         (ICMPv6) for the Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6)
         Specification", RFC 2463, December 1998.

   [9]   Deering, S. and R. Hinden, "Internet Protocol, Version 6 (IPv6)
         Specification", RFC 2460, December 1998.

   [10]  McCann, J., Deering, S. and J. Mogul, "Path MTU Discovery for
         IP version 6", RFC 1981, August 1996.

   [11]  Postel, J., "Internet Protocol", STD 5, RFC 791, September
         1981.

11.2  Informative References

   [12]  Watson, P., "Slipping in the Window: TCP Reset Attacks", 2004
         CanSecWest Conference , 2004.

   [13]  Jacobson, V., Braden, B. and D. Borman, "TCP Extensions for
         High Performance", RFC 1323, May 1992.

   [14]  Stewart, R., "Transmission Control Protocol security
         considerations", draft-ietf-tcpm-tcpsecure-02 (work in
         progress), November 2004.

   [15]  Touch, J., "ANONsec: Anonymous IPsec to Defend Against Spoofing
         Attacks", draft-touch-anonsec-00 (work in progress), May 2004.

   [16]  Poon, K., "Use of TCP timestamp option to defend against blind
         spoofing attack", draft-poon-tcp-tstamp-mod-01 (work in
         progress), October 2004.

   [17]  Heffernan, A., "Protection of BGP Sessions via the TCP MD5
         Signature Option", RFC 2385, August 1998.

   [18]  Rivest, R., "The MD5 Message-Digest Algorithm", RFC 1321, April
         1992.

   [19]  Clark, D., "Fault isolation and recovery", RFC 816, July 1982.

   [20]  Gont, F., "Increasing the payload of ICMP error messages",
         (work in progress) draft-gont-icmp-payload-00.txt, 2004.

   [21]  Allman, M., Paxson, V. and W. Stevens, "TCP Congestion
         Control", RFC 2581, April 1999.




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   [22]  Larsen, M., "Port Randomisation",
         draft-larsen-tsvwg-port-randomisation-00 (work in progress),
         October 2004.

   [23]  Shepard, T., "Reassign Port Number option for TCP",
         draft-shepard-tcp-reassign-port-number-00 (work in progress),
         July 2004.

   [24]  Mathis, M., "Path MTU Discovery", draft-ietf-pmtud-method-03
         (work in progress), October 2004.

   [25]  Gont, F., "TCP's Reaction to Soft Errors",
         draft-gont-tcpm-tcp-soft-errors-01 (work in progress), October
         2004.

   [26]  Klensin, J., "Simple Mail Transfer Protocol", RFC 2821, April
         2001.

   [27]  Fielding, R., Gettys, J., Mogul, J., Frystyk, H., Masinter, L.,
         Leach, P. and T. Berners-Lee, "Hypertext Transfer Protocol --
         HTTP/1.1", RFC 2616, June 1999.

   [28]  Nagle, J., "Congestion control in IP/TCP internetworks", RFC
         896, January 1984.


Author's Address

   Fernando Gont
   Universidad Tecnologica Nacional
   Evaristo Carriego 2644
   Haedo, Provincia de Buenos Aires  1706
   Argentina

   Phone: +54 11 4650 8472
   EMail: fernando@gont.com.ar

Appendix A.  The counter-measure for the PMTUD attack in action

   This appendix shows the proposed counter-measure for the ICMP attack
   against the PMTUD mechanism in action.  It shows both how the fix
   protects TCP from being attacked and how the counter-measure works in
   normal scenarios.  As discussed in Section 5, this Appendix assumes
   the PMTUD-specific counter-measure is implemented in addition to the
   TCP sequence number checking described in Section 5.1.

   Figure 1 illustrates an hypothetical scenario in which two hosts are
   connected by means of three intermediate routers.  It also shows the



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   MTU of each hypothetical hop.  All the following subsections assume
   the network setup of this figure.

   Also, for simplicity, all subsections assume an IP header of 20
   octets and a TCP header of 20 octets.  Thus, for example, when the
   PMTU is assumed to be 1500 octets, TCP will send segments that
   contain, at most, 1460 octets of data.

   For simplicity, all the following subsections assume the TCP
   implementation at Host 1 has chosen a MAXPKTTOOBIG of 1, and a
   MAXSEGRTO of 1.


   +----+        +----+        +----+        +----+        +----+
   | H1 |--------| R1 |--------| R2 |--------| R3 |--------| H2 |
   +----+        +----+        +----+        +----+        +----+
         MTU=4464      MTU=2048      MTU=1500      MTU=4464

                    Figure 1: Hypothetical scenario


A.1  Normal operation for bulk transfers

   This subsection shows the proposed counter-measure in normal
   operation, when a TCP connection is used for bulk transfers.  That
   is, it shows how the proposed counter-measure works when there is no
   attack taking place, and a TCP connection is used for transferring
   large amounts of data.  This section assumes that just after the
   connection is established, one of the TCP endpoints begins to
   transfer data in packets that are as large as possible.





















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      Host 1                                         Host 2

   1.    -->           <SEQ=100><CTL=SYN>            -->
   2.    <--     <SEQ=X><ACK=101><CTL=SYN,ACK>       <--
   3.    -->      <SEQ=101><ACK=X+1><CTL=ACK>        -->
   4.    --> <SEQ=101><ACK=X+1><CTL=ACK><DATA=4424>  -->
   5.        <--- ICMP "Packet Too Big" MTU=2048, TCPseq#=101 <--- R1
   6.    --> <SEQ=101><ACK=X+1><CTL=ACK><DATA=2008>  -->
   7.        <--- ICMP "Packet Too Big" MTU=1500, TCPseq#=101 <--- R2
   8.    --> <SEQ=101><ACK=X+1><CTL=ACK><DATA=1460>  -->
   9.    <--      <SEQ=X+1><ACK=1561><CTL=ACK>       <--


             Figure 2: Normal operation for bulk transfers

   Both npkttoobig and nsegrto are initialized to zero.  maxsizeacked is
   initialized to the minimum MTU for the internet protocol being used
   (68 for IPv4, and 1280 for IPv6).

   In lines 1 to 3 the three-way handshake takes place, and the
   connection is established.  In line 4, H1 tries to send a full-sized
   TCP segment.  As described by [6] and [10], in this case TCP will try
   to send a segment with 4424 bytes of data, which will result in an IP
   packet of 4464 octets.  When the packet reaches R1, it elicits an
   ICMP "Packet Too Big" error message.

   In line 5, H1 receives the ICMP error message, which reports a
   Next-Hop MTU of 2048 octets.  After performing the TCP sequence
   number check, the Next-Hop MTU reported by the ICMP error message
   (claimedmtu) is compared with maxsizeacked.  As claimedmtu is larger
   than maxsizeacked, TCP assumes that the corresponding TCP segment was
   performing the Initial PMTU Discovery.  Therefore, the TCP at H1
   honors the ICMP message by updating the assumed Path-MTU.

   In line 6, the TCP at H1 sends a segment with 2008 bytes of data,
   which results in an IP packet of 2048 octets.  When the packet
   reaches R2, it elicits an ICMP "Packet Too Big" error message.

   In line 7, H1 receives the ICMP error message, which reports a
   Next-Hop MTU of 1500 octets.  After performing the TCP sequence
   number check, the Next-Hop MTU reported by the ICMP error message
   (claimedmtu) is compared with maxsizeacked.  As claimedmtu is larger
   than maxsizeacked, TCP assumes that the corresponding TCP segment was
   performing the Initial PMTU Discovery.  Therefore, the TCP at H1
   honors the ICMP message by updating the assumed Path-MTU.

   In line 8, the TCP at H1 sends a segment with 1460 bytes of data,
   which results in an IP packet of 1500 octets.  This packet reaches



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   H2, where it elicits an acknowledgement (ACK) segment.

   In line 9, H1 finally gets the acknowledgement for the data segment.
   As the corresponding packet was larger than maxsizeacked, TCP updates
   maxsizeacked, setting it to 1500.  At this point TCP has discovered
   the Path-MTU for this TCP connection.

A.2  Operation during Path-MTU changes

   Let us suppose a TCP connection between H1 and H2 has already been
   established, and that the PMTU for the connection has already been
   discovered to be 1500.  At this point, maxsizeacked is equal to 1500,
   maxsegrto is equal to 0, and maxpkttoobig is equal to 0.  Suppose
   some time later the PMTU decreases to 1492.  For simplicity, let us
   suppose that the Path-MTU has decreased because the MTU of the link
   between R2 and R3 has decreased from 1500 to 1492.  Figure 3
   illustrates how the proposed counter-measure would work in this
   scenario.


        Host 1                                         Host 2

   1.                     (Path-MTU decreases)
   2.      -->  <SEQ=100><ACK=X><CTL=ACK><DATA=1500>   -->
   3.         <--- ICMP "Packet Too Big" MTU=1492, TCPseq#=100 <--- R2
   4.                     (Segment times out)
   5.      -->  <SEQ=100><ACK=X><CTL=ACK><DATA=1452>   -->
   6.      <--      <SEQ=X><ACK=1552><CTL=ACK>         <--


              Figure 3: Operation during Path-MTU changes

   In line 1, the Path-MTU for this connection decreases from 1500 to
   1492.  In line 2, the TCP at H1, without being aware of the Path-MTU
   change, sends a packet to H2.  When the packet reaches R2, it elicits
   an ICMP "Packet Too Big" error message.

   In line 3, H1 receives the ICMP error message, which reports a
   Next-Hop MTU of 1492 octets.  After performing the TCP sequence
   number check, the Next-Hop MTU reported by the ICMP error message
   (claimedmtu) is compared with maxsizeacked.  As claimedmtu is smaller
   than maxsizeacked, this packet is assumed to be performing Path-MTU
   Update.  Thus, npkttoobig is incremented by one.  While npkttoobig is
   greater than or equal to MAXPKTTOOBIG, nsegrto is still smaller than
   MAXSEGRTO, and thus the assumed PMTU will not yet be updated.

   In line 4, the segment times out.  Thus, nsegrto is incremented by 1.
   As npkttoobig is greater than or equal to MAXPKTTOOBIG and nsegrto is



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   greater than or equal to MAXSEGRTO, the assumed Path-MTU is updated.
   npkttoobig and nsegrto are reset to 0, and maxsizeacked is set to
   claimedmtu.

   In line 5, H1 retransmits the data using the updated PMTU.  The
   resulting packet reaches H2, where it elicits an acknowledgement
   (ACK) segment.

   In line 6, H1 finally gets the acknowledgement for the data segment.
   At this point TCP has discovered the new Path-MTU for this TCP
   connection.

A.3  Idle connection being attacked

   Let us suppose a TCP connection between H1 and H2 has already been
   established, and the PMTU for the connection has already been
   discovered to be 1500.  Figure 4 shows a sample time-line diagram
   that illustrates an idle connection being attacked.  We assume the
   attacker has guessed the four-tuple that identifies the connection.


        Host 1                                           Host 2

   1.     -->     <SEQ=100><ACK=X><CTL=ACK><DATA=50>      -->
   2.     <--         <SEQ=X><ACK=150><CTL=ACK>           <--
   3.         <--- ICMP "Packet Too Big" MTU=68, TCPseq#=100 <---
   4.         <--- ICMP "Packet Too Big" MTU=68, TCPseq#=100 <---
   5.         <--- ICMP "Packet Too Big" MTU=68, TCPseq#=100 <---


                Figure 4: Idle connection being attacked

   In line 1, H1 sends its last bunch of data.  At line 2, H2
   acknowledges the receipt of these data.  Then the connection becomes
   idle.  In lines 3, 4, and 5, an attacker sends forged ICMP "Packet
   Too Big" error messages to H1.  Regardless of how many packets it
   sends and the TCP sequence number each ICMP packet includes, none of
   these ICMP error messages will pass the TCP sequence number check
   described in Section 5.1, as H1 has no unacknowledged data in flight
   to H2.  Therefore, the attack does not succeed.

A.4  Active connection being attacked after discovery of the Path-MTU

   Let us suppose an attacker attacks a TCP connection for which the
   PMTU has already been discovered.  In this case, as illustrated in
   Figure 1, the PMTU would be found to be 1500 bytes.  Figure 5 shows a
   possible packet exchange.




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       Host 1                                           Host 2

   1.    -->    <SEQ=100><ACK=X><CTL=ACK><DATA=1460>    -->
   2.    -->    <SEQ=1560><ACK=X><CTL=ACK><DATA=1460>   -->
   3.    -->    <SEQ=3020><ACK=X><CTL=ACK><DATA=1460>   -->
   4.    -->    <SEQ=4480><ACK=X><CTL=ACK><DATA=1460>   -->
   5.        <--- ICMP "Packet Too Big" MTU=68, TCPseq#=100 <---
   6.    <--        <SEQ=X><CTL=ACK><ACK=1560>          <--

   Figure 5: Active connection being attacked after discovery of PMTU

   As we assume the PMTU has already been discovered, we also assume
   maxsizeacked is equal to 1500.  Also, npkttoobig must be equal to
   zero, as no ICMP "Packet Too Big" error messages have been received
   for the outstanding segments.  In the same way, we assume nsegrto is
   equal to zero, as there have been no segment timeouts.

   In lines 1, 2, 3, and 4, H1 sends four data segments to H2.  In line
   5, an attacker sends a forged ICMP packet to H1.  We assume the
   attacker is lucky enough to guess both the four-tuple that identifies
   the connection and a valid TCP sequence number.  As the Next-Hop MTU
   claimed in the ICMP "Packet Too Big" message (claimedmtu) is smaller
   than maxsizeacked, this packet is assumed to be performing Path-MTU
   Update.  Thus, npkttoobig is incremented by one.  While npkttoobig is
   greater than or equal to MAXPKTTOOBIG, nsegrto is still smaller than
   MAXSEGRTO, and thus the assumed PMTU will not yet be updated.

   In line 6, H1 receives an acknowledgement for the segment from line
   1, before it times out.  At this point, npkttoobig is set back to
   zero, and the pending ICMP "Packet Too Big" error message is ignored.
   Therefore, the attack does not succeed.

Appendix B.  An attack that could still succeed

   This Appendix is for completeness-sake only.  The author believes
   this Appendix will be removed in future revisions of this document.
   In any case, input on this issue is welcome.

   As mentioned in Section 7.2.2, even if the proposed counter-measure
   for the PMTUD attack were implemented, there is an attack that could
   still succeed.

   Suppose a TCP connection is used by an application which involves the
   exchange of small amounts of data before large transfers take place.
   Applications using protocols such as SMTP [26] and HTTP [27], for
   example, usually behave like this.

   Figure 6 shows a possible packet exchange for such scenario.



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      Host 1                                         Host 2

   1.   -->          <SEQ=100><CTL=SYN>             -->
   2.   <--     <SEQ=X><ACK=101><CTL=SYN,ACK>       <--
   3.   -->      <SEQ=101><ACK=X+1><CTL=ACK>        -->
   4.   -->  <SEQ=101><ACK=X+1><CTL=ACK><DATA=100>  -->
   5.   <--      <SEQ=X+1><ACK=201><CTL=ACK>        <--
   6.   -->  <SEQ=201><ACK=X+1><CTL=ACK><DATA=100>  -->
   7.   -->  <SEQ=301><ACK=X+1><CTL=ACK><DATA=100>  -->
   8.        <--- ICMP "Packet Too Big" MTU=150, TCPseq#=101 <---


     Figure 6: An attack against the PMTUD that could still succeed

   Both npkttoobig and nsegrto are initialized to zero.  maxsizeacked is
   initialized to the minimum MTU for the internet protocol being used
   (68 for IPv4, and 1280 for IPv6).

   In lines 1 to 3 the three-way handshake takes place, and the
   connection is established.  In line 4, H1 sends a small segment to
   H2.  In line 5 this segment is acknowledged, and thus maxsizeacked is
   set to 140.

   In lines 6 and 7, H1 sends two small segments to H2.  In line 8,
   while the segments from lines 6 and 7 are still in flight to H2, an
   attacker sends a forged ICMP "Packet Too Big" error message to H1.
   Assuming the attacker is lucky enough to guess a valid TCP sequence
   number, this ICMP message will pass the TCP sequence number check.
   The Next-Hop MTU reported by the ICMP error message (claimedmtu) is
   then compared with maxsizeacked.  As claimedmtu is larger than
   maxsizeacked, TCP assumes that the corresponding TCP segment was
   performing the Initial PMTU Discovery.  Therefore, the TCP at H1 will
   incorrectly honor the ICMP message by updating the assumed MTU.

   Thus, the connection will assume a PMTU of 150 octets until the next
   PMTU-increase "probe" is sent.  Depending on the implementation, this
   "probe" could be sent several minutes later [6][10].

   It must be noted that while this attack is theoretically possible, we
   have assumed the attacker is lucky enough not only to guess the
   four-tuple that identifies the connection, but also to guess the
   sequence number of unacknowledged data that are in flight to H2.
   Given that we assume that only a few small segments are in flight to
   H2, this is very unlikely.  Furthermore, in order to produce any
   performance impact, the forged ICMP error message should report a
   Next-Hop MTU that is small enough, but that is larger than
   maxsizeacked, as TCP would otherwise assume this segment is
   performing Path-MTU Update, and therefore would delay the update of



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   the assumed Path-MTU.

   Also, it must be noted that algorithms such as that described in [28]
   will help to avoid sending small segments, and therefore will also
   help to make maxsizeacked increase quickly, making this attack
   non-sensical.

   In any case, this attack could be completely eliminated by
   introducing an additional variable: maxsizeinflight.  For new
   connections, this variable would be initialized to the minimum MTU of
   the internet protocol being used (68 for IPv4, and 1280 for IPv6).

   Whenever a packet is to be transmitted, the size of the packet is
   compared with maxsizeinflight.  If the size of the packet to be
   transmitted is larger than maxsizeinflight, maxsizeinflight is set to
   that packet size.

   Whenever the assumed Path-MTU is updated (either as the result of a
   segment performing Initial Path-MTU Discovery, or as the result of a
   segment performing Path-MTU Update), maxsizeinflight is set to the
   new assumed Path-MTU value.

   This way, TCP has a record of the largest packet size it has in
   flight, and thus can ignore ICMP "Packet Too Big" messages that claim
   errors that could never have happened.

Appendix C.  Advice and guidance to vendors

   Vendors are urged to contact NISCC (vulteam@niscc.gov.uk) if they
   think they will be effected by the issues described in this document.
   As the lead coordination center for these issues, NISCC is well
   placed to give advice and guidance as required.

   NISCC works extensively with government departments and agencies,
   commercial organizations and the academic community to research
   vulnerabilities and potential threats to IT systems especially where
   they may have an impact on Critical National Infrastructure's (CNI).

   Other ways to contact NISCC, plus NISCC's PGP public key, are
   available at http://www.uniras.gov.uk/vuls/ .

Appendix D.  Changes from previous versions of the draft

D.1  Changes from draft-gont-tcpm-icmp-attacks-02

   o  Fixed errors in Section 6.2.1

   o  The proposed counter-measure for the attack against the PMTUD



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      mechanism was refined to allow quick discovery of the Path-MTU

   o  Appendix A was added so as to clarify the operation of the
      counter-measure for the attack against the PMTUD mechanism

   o  Added Appendix C

   o  Miscellaneous editorial changes


D.2  Changes from draft-gont-tcpm-icmp-attacks-01

   o  The document was restructured for easier reading

   o  A discussion of ICMPv6 was added in several sections of the
      document

   o  Added Section 5.2

   o  Added Section 5.5

   o  Added Section 7.2

   o  Fixed typo in the ICMP types, in several places

   o  Fixed typo in the TCP sequence number check formula

   o  Miscellaneous editorial changes


D.3  Changes from draft-gont-tcpm-icmp-attacks-00

   o  Added a proposal to change the handling of the so-called ICMP hard
      errors during the synchronized states

   o  Added a summary of the relevant RFCs in several sections

   o  Miscellaneous editorial changes













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