IPv6 Operations Working Group (v6ops) F. Gont
Internet-Draft UK CPNI
Intended status: BCP March 3, 2012
Expires: September 4, 2012
Implementation Advice for IPv6 Router Advertisement Guard (RA-Guard)
draft-ietf-v6ops-ra-guard-implementation-01
Abstract
The IPv6 Router Advertisement Guard (RA-Guard) mechanism is commonly
employed to mitigate attack vectors based on forged ICMPv6 Router
Advertisement messages. Many existing IPv6 deployments rely on RA-
Guard as the first line of defense against the aforementioned attack
vectors. However, some implementations of RA-Guard have been found
to be prone to circumvention by employing IPv6 Extension Headers.
This document describes the evasion techniques that affect the
aforementioned implementations, and provides advice on the
implementation of RA-Guard, such that the RA-Guard evasion vectors
are eliminated.
Status of this Memo
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This Internet-Draft will expire on September 4, 2012.
Copyright Notice
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document authors. All rights reserved.
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carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect
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Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2. Evasion techniques for some Router Advertisement Guard (RA
Guard) implementations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2.1. Attack Vector based on IPv6 Extension Headers . . . . . . 4
2.2. Attack vector based on IPv6 fragmentation . . . . . . . . 4
3. RA-Guard implementation advice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
4. Other Implications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
5. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
6. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
7. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
7.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
7.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Appendix A. Changes from previous versions of the draft (to
be removed by the RFC Editor before publication
of this document as a RFC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
A.1. Changes from
draft-ietf-v6ops-ra-guard-implementation-00 . . . . . . . 15
A.2. Changes from
draft-gont-v6ops-ra-guard-implementation-01 . . . . . . . 15
A.3. Changes from
draft-gont-v6ops-ra-guard-implementation-00 . . . . . . . 15
A.4. Changes from draft-gont-v6ops-ra-guard-evasion-01 . . . . 15
Appendix B. Assessment tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Appendix C. Advice and guidance to vendors . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Author's Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
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1. Introduction
IPv6 Router Advertisement Guard (RA-Guard) is a mitigation technique
for attack vectors based on ICMPv6 Router Advertisement messages.
[RFC6104] describes the problem statement of "Rogue IPv6 Router
Advertisements", and [RFC6105] specifies the "IPv6 Router
Advertisement Guard" functionality.
The basic concept behind RA-Guard is that a layer-2 device filters
ICMPv6 Router Advertisement messages, according to a number of
different criteria. The most basic filtering criterion is that
Router Advertisement messages are discarded by the layer-2 device
unless they are received on a specified port of the layer-2 device.
Clearly, the effectiveness of the RA Guard mitigation relies on the
ability of the layer-2 device to identify ICMPv6 Router Advertisement
messages.
Some popular RA-Guard implementations have been found to be easy to
circumvent by employing IPv6 extension headers [CPNI-IPv6]. This
document describes such evasion techniques, and provides advice to
RA-Guard implementers such that the aforementioned evasion vectors
can be eliminated.
It should be noted that the aforementioned techniques could also be
exploited to evade network monitoring tools such as NDPMon [NDPMon],
ramond [ramond], and rafixd [rafixd], and could probably be exploited
to perform stealth DHCPv6 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 [RFC2119].
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2. Evasion techniques for some Router Advertisement Guard (RA Guard)
implementations
The following subsections describe two different vectors that have
been found to be effective for the evasion of popular implementations
of the RA-Guard protection. Section 2.1 describes an attack vector
based on the use of IPv6 Extension Headers with the ICMPv6 Router
Advertisement messages, which may be used to circumvent the RA-Guard
protection of those implementations that fail to process an entire
IPv6 header chain when trying to identify the ICMPv6 Router
Advertisement messages. Section 2.2 describes an attack method based
on the use of IPv6 fragmentation, possibly in conjunction with the
use of IPv6 Extension Headers. This later vector has been found to
be effective with all existing implementations of the RA-Guard
mechanism.
2.1. Attack Vector based on IPv6 Extension Headers
While there is currently no legitimate use for IPv6 Extension Headers
in ICMPv6 Router Advertisement messages, Neighbor Discovery
implementations allow the use of Extension Headers with these
messages, by simply ignoring the received options. Some RA-Guard
implementations try to identify ICMPv6 Router Advertisement messages
by simply looking at the "Next Header" field of the fixed IPv6
header, rather than following the entire header chain. As a result,
such implementations fail to identify any ICMPv6 Router Advertisement
messages that include any Extension Headers (for example, a Hop by
Hop Options header, a Destination Options Header, etc.), and can be
easily circumvented.
The following figure illustrates the structure of ICMPv6 Router
Advertisement messages that implement this evasion technique:
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
|NH=60| |NH=58| | |
+-+-+-+ +-+-+-+ + +
| IPv6 header | Dst Opt Hdr | ICMPv6 Router Advertisement |
+ + + +
| | | |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
2.2. Attack vector based on IPv6 fragmentation
This section presents a different attack vector, which has been found
to be effective against all implementations of RA-Guard. The basic
idea behind this attack vector is that if the forged ICMPv6 Router
Advertisement is fragmented into at least two fragments, the layer-2
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device implementing "RA-Guard" would be unable to identify the attack
packet, and would thus fail to block it.
A first variant of this attack vector would be an original ICMPv6
Router Advertisement message preceded with a Destination Options
Header, that results in two fragments. The following figure
illustrates the "original" attack packet, prior to fragmentation, and
the two resulting fragments which are actually sent as part of the
attack.
Original packet:
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
|NH=60| |NH=58| | |
+-+-+-+ +-+-+-+ + +
| IPv6 header | Dst Opt Hdr | ICMPv6 RA |
+ + + +
| | | |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
First fragment:
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
|NH=44| |NH=60| |NH=58| |
+-+-+-+ +-+-+-+ +-+-+-+ +
| IPv6 Header | Frag Hdr | Dst Opt Hdr |
+ + + +
| | | |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
Second fragment:
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
|NH=44| |NH=60| | | |
+-+-+-+ +-+-+-+ + + +
| IPv6 header | Frag Hdr | Dst Opt Hdr | ICMPv6 RA |
+ + + + +
| | | | |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
It should be noted that the "Hdr Ext Len" field of the Destination
Options Header is present in the first fragment (rather than the
second). Therefore, it is impossible for a device processing only
the second fragment to locate the ICMPv6 header contained in that
fragment, since it is unknown how many bytes should be "skipped" to
get to the next header following the Destination Options Header.
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Thus, by leveraging the use of the Fragment Header together with the
use of the Destination Options header, the attacker is able to
conceal the type and contents of the ICMPv6 message he is sending (an
ICMPv6 Router Advertisement in this example). Unless the layer-2
device were to implement IPv6 fragment reassembly, it would be
impossible for the device to identify the ICMPv6 type of the message.
A layer-2 device could, however, at least detect that that an
ICMPv6 message (or some type) is being sent, since the "Next
Header" field of the Destination Options header contained in the
first fragment is set to "58" (ICMPv6).
This idea can be taken further, such that it is also impossible for
the layer-2 device to detect that the attacker is sending an ICMPv6
message in the first place. This can be achieved with an original
ICMPv6 Router Advertisement message preceded with two Destination
Options Headers, that results in two fragments. The following figure
illustrates the "original" attack packet, prior to fragmentation, and
the two resulting packets which are actually sent as part of the
attack.
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Original packet:
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-//+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
|NH=60| |NH=60| |NH=58| | |
+-+-+-+ +-+-+-+ +-+-+-+ + +
| IPv6 header | Dst Opt Hdr | Dst Opt Hdr | ICMPv6 RA |
+ + + + +
| | | | |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-//+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
First fragment:
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
|NH=44| |NH=60| |NH=60| |
+-+-+-+ +-+-+-+ +-+-+-+ +
| IPv6 header | Frag Hdr | Dst Opt Hdr |
+ + + +
| | | |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
Second fragment:
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
|NH=44| |NH=60| | |NH=58| | |
+-+-+-+ +-+-+-+ + +-+-+-+ + +
| IPv6 header | Frag Hdr | Dst O Hdr | Dst Opt Hdr | ICMPv6 RA |
+ + + + + +
| | | | | |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
In this variant, the "Next Header" field of the Destination Options
header contained in the first fragment is set "60" (Destination
Options header), and thus it is impossible for a device processing
only the first fragment to detect that an ICMPv6 message is being
sent in the first place.
The second fragment presents the same challenges as the second
fragment of the previous variant. That is, it would be impossible
for a device processing only the second fragment to locate the second
Destination Options header (and hence the ICMPv6 header), since the
"Hdr Ext Len" field of the first Destination Options header is
present in the first fragment (rather than the second).
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3. RA-Guard implementation advice
The following filtering rules MUST be implemented as part of an "RA-
Guard" implementation on those ports that are not allowed to send
ICMPv6 Router Advertisement messages, such that the vulnerabilities
discussed in this document are eliminated:
1. When trying to identify an ICMPv6 Router Advertisement message,
follow the IPv6 header chain, enforcing a limit on the maximum
number of Extension Headers that is allowed for each packet. If
such limit is hit before the upper-layer protocol is identified,
silently drop the packet.
2. If the packet is identified to be an ICMPv6 Router Advertisement
message, silently drop the packet.
3. If the layer-2 device is unable to identify whether the packet is
an ICMPv6 Router Advertisement message or not (i.e., the packet
is a fragment, and the necessary information is missing), the
IPv6 Source Address of the packet is a link-local address or the
unspecified address (::), and the Hop Limit is 255, silently drop
the packet.
4. In all other cases, pass the packet as usual.
Note: For the purpose of enforcing the RA-Guard filtering policy,
an ESP header [RFC4303] should be considered to be an "upper-layer
protocol" (that is, it should be considered the last header in the
IPv6 header chain). This means that packets employing ESP would
be passed by the RA-Guard device to the intended destination. If
the destination host does not have a security association with the
sender of the aforementioned IPv6 packet, the packet would be
dropped. Otherwise, if the packet is considered valid by the
IPsec implementation at the receiving host and encapsulates a
Router Advertisement message, it is up to the receiving host what
to do with such packet.
In order to protect current end-node IPv6 implementations, Rule #3
has been defined as a default rule to drop packets that cannot be
positively identified as RA packets or not (perhaps due to the fact
that it contains fragments that do not contain the entire IPv6 header
chain). This means that, at least in theory, RA-Guard could result
in false-positive blocking of some legitimate non-RA packets that
could not be positively identified as being non-RA. In order to
reduce the likelihood of false positives, Rule #3 also requires that
an RA-Guard implementation check, before dropping an unidentifiable
packet, that it has an IPv6 Source Address that is a link-local
address or the unspecified address (::), and that the Hop Limit is
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255. In any case, as noted in
[I-D.gont-6man-oversized-header-chain], IPv6 packets that fail to
include the entire IPv6 header chain are anyway unlikely to survive
in real networks. Whilst currently legitimate from a specifications
standpoint, they are virtually impossible to police with state-less
filters and firewalls, and are hence likely to be blocked by such
filters and firewalls.
This filtering policy assumes that host implementations require that
the IPv6 Source Address of ICMPv6 Router Advertisement messages be a
link-local address, and that they discard the packet if this check
fails, as required by the current IETF specifications [RFC4861].
Additionally, it assumes that hosts require the Hop Limit of Neighbor
Discovery messages to be 255, and discard those packets otherwise.
Finally, note that the aforementioned filtering rules implicitly
handle the case of fragmented packets: if the RA-Guard device fails
to identify the upper-layer protocol as a result of the use of
fragmentation, the corresponding packets would be silently dropped.
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4. Other Implications
A similar concept to that of "RA-Guard" has been implemented for
protecting against forged DHCPv6 messages. Such protection can be
circumvented with the same techniques discussed in this document, and
the counter-measures for such evasion attack are analogous to those
described in Section 3 of this document.
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5. Security Considerations
This document describes a number of techniques that have been found
to be effective to circumvent popular RA-Guard implementations.
The most effective and efficient mitigation for these attacks would
be to prohibit the use of some IPv6 extension headers with Router
Advertisement messages (as proposed by
[I-D.gont-6man-nd-extension-headers]), such that the RA-Guard
functionality is easier to implement. However, since such mitigation
would require an update to existing implementations, it cannot be
relied upon in the short or near term.
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6. Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank Ran Atkinson, Karl Auer, Robert
Downie, David Farmer, Marc Heuse, Ray Hunter, Simon Perreault, Arturo
Servin, and Gunter van de Velde, for providing valuable comments on
earlier versions of this document.
The author would like to thank Arturo Servin, who presented this work
at IETF 81.
This document resulted from the project "Security Assessment of the
Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6)" [CPNI-IPv6], carried out by
Fernando Gont on behalf of the UK Centre for the Protection of
National Infrastructure (CPNI). The author would like to thank the
UK CPNI, for their continued support.
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7. References
7.1. Normative References
[RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.
[RFC4303] Kent, S., "IP Encapsulating Security Payload (ESP)",
RFC 4303, December 2005.
[RFC4861] Narten, T., Nordmark, E., Simpson, W., and H. Soliman,
"Neighbor Discovery for IP version 6 (IPv6)", RFC 4861,
September 2007.
7.2. Informative References
[RFC6104] Chown, T. and S. Venaas, "Rogue IPv6 Router Advertisement
Problem Statement", RFC 6104, February 2011.
[RFC6105] Levy-Abegnoli, E., Van de Velde, G., Popoviciu, C., and J.
Mohacsi, "IPv6 Router Advertisement Guard", RFC 6105,
February 2011.
[]
Gont, F. and V. Manral, "Security and Interoperability
Implications of Oversized IPv6 Header Chains",
draft-gont-6man-oversized-header-chain-00 (work in
progress), February 2012.
[]
Gont, F., "Security Implications of the Use of IPv6
Extension Headers with IPv6 Neighbor Discovery",
draft-gont-6man-nd-extension-headers-02 (work in
progress), January 2012.
[CPNI-IPv6]
Gont, F., "Security Assessment of the Internet Protocol
version 6 (IPv6)", UK Centre for the Protection of
National Infrastructure, (available on request).
[NDPMon] "NDPMon - IPv6 Neighbor Discovery Protocol Monitor",
<http://ndpmon.sourceforge.net/>.
[rafixd] "rafixd", <http://www.kame.net/dev/cvsweb2.cgi/kame/kame/
kame/rafixd/>.
[ramond] "ramond", <http://ramond.sourceforge.net/>.
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[THC-IPV6]
"THC-IPV6", <http://www.thc.org/thc-ipv6/>.
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Appendix A. Changes from previous versions of the draft (to be removed
by the RFC Editor before publication of this document as a
RFC
A.1. Changes from draft-ietf-v6ops-ra-guard-implementation-00
o The filtering rules in Section 3 have been further clarified.
A.2. Changes from draft-gont-v6ops-ra-guard-implementation-01
o Document resubmitted as draft-ietf to reflect wg adoption.
A.3. Changes from draft-gont-v6ops-ra-guard-implementation-00
o Miscellaneous (minor) editorial changes.
o The filtering rules in Section 3 have been polished.
A.4. Changes from draft-gont-v6ops-ra-guard-evasion-01
o The contents were updated to reflect that the evasion
vulnerabilities are based on implementation flaws, rather than on
the RA-Guard "concept" itself.
o The I-D now focuses on providing advice to RA-Guard implementers.
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Appendix B. Assessment tools
CPNI has produced assessment tools (which have not yet been made
publicly available) to assess RA-Guard implementations with respect
to the issues described in this document. If you think that you
would benefit from these tools, we might be able to provide a copy of
the tools (please contact Fernando Gont at fernando@gont.com.ar).
[THC-IPV6] is a publicly-available set of tools that implements some
of the techniques described in this document.
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Appendix C. Advice and guidance to vendors
Vendors are urged to contact CSIRTUK (csirt@cpni.gsi.gov.uk) if they
think they may be affected by the issues described in this document.
As the lead coordination centre for these issues, CPNI is well placed
to give advice and guidance as required.
CPNI works extensively with government departments and agencies,
commercial organisations 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 CPNI, plus CPNI's PGP public key, are available
at http://www.cpni.gov.uk.
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Author's Address
Fernando Gont
Centre for the Protection of National Infrastructure
Email: fgont@si6networks.com
URI: http://www.cpni.gov.uk
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