Secure Inter-Domain Routing S. Kent
Internet-Draft BBN
Intended status: Standards Track
Expires: August 14, 2011
February 10, 2011
Threat Model for BGP Path Security
draft-kent-bgpsec-threats-01.txt
Abstract
This document describes a threat model for BGP path security
(BGPSEC). BGPSEC is assumed to make use of the Resource Public Key
Infrastructure (RPKI) already developed in the SIDR WG [I-D.ietf-
sidr-arch], and thus threats and attacks against the RPKI are part of
this model. The model assumes that BGP path security is achieved
through the application of digital signatures to AS_Path Info. The
document characterizes classes of potential adversaries that are
considered to be threats, and examines classes of attacks that might
be launched against BGPSEC. It concludes with brief discussion of
residual vulnerabilities.
Status of this Memo
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Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2. Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
3. Threat Characterization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
4. Attack Characterization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
4.1. Active wiretapping of links between routers . . . . . . . . 5
4.2. Attacks on a BGP router . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
4.3. Attacks on ISP management computers (non-CA computers) . . 7
4.4. Attacks on a repository publication point . . . . . . . . . 7
4.5 Attacks on an RPKI CA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
5. Residual Vulnerabilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
6. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
7. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
8. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
9. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
9.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
9.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Author's Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
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1. Introduction
This document describes the security context in which BGPSEC is
intended to operate. It discusses classes of potential adversaries
that are considered to be threats, and classes of attacks that might
be launched against BGPSEC. Because BGPSEC depends on the Resource
Public Key Infrastructure (RPKI), threats and attacks against the
RPKI also are discussed.
The motivation for developing BGPSEC, i.e., residual security
concerns for BGP, is well described in several documents, including
"BGP Security Vulnerabilities Analysis" [RFC4272] and "Design and
Analysis of the Secure Border Gateway Protocol (S-BGP)" [Kent2000].
All of these papers note that BGP does not include mechanisms that
allow an Autonomous System (AS) to verify the legitimacy and
authenticity of BGP route advertisements. (BGP now mandates support
for mechanisms to secure peer-peer communication, i.e., for the links
that connect BGP routers. There are several secure protocol options
to addresses this security concern, e.g., IPsec [RFC4301] and TCP-AO
[RFC5925]. This document briefly notes the need to address this
aspect of BGP security, but focuses on application layer BGP security
issues that are addressed by BGPSEC.)
RFC 4272 succinctly notes:
BGP speakers themselves can inject bogus routing information,
either by masquerading as any other legitimate BGP speaker, or by
distributing unauthorized routing information as themselves.
Historically, misconfigured and faulty routers have been
responsible for widespread disruptions in the Internet. The
legitimate BGP peers have the context and information to produce
believable, yet bogus, routing information, and therefore have the
opportunity to cause great damage. The cryptographic protections
of [TCPMD5] and operational protections cannot exclude the bogus
information arising from a legitimate peer. The risk of
disruptions caused by legitimate BGP speakers is real and cannot be
ignored.
BGPSEC is intended to address the concerns cited above, to provide
significantly improved path security, and to build upon the secure
route origination foundation offered by use of the RPKI.
Specifically, the RPKI enables relying parties (RPs) to determine of
the origin AS for a path was authorized to advertise the prefix
contained in a BGP update message. This security feature is enabled
by the use of two types of digitally signed data: a PKI [I-D.sidr-
res-certs] that associates one or more prefixes with the public
key(s) of an address space holder, and Route Origination
Authorizations (ROAs) [I-D.roa-format] that allows a prefix holder to
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specify the AS(es) that are authorized to originate routes for a
prefix.
The security model adopted for BGPSEC does not assume an "oracle"
that can see all of the BGP inputs and outputs associated with every
AS or every BGP router. Instead, the model is based on a local notion
of what constitutes legitimate, authorized behavior by the BGP
routers associated with an AS. This is an AS-centric model of secure
operation, consistent with the AS-centric model that BGP employs for
routing. This model forms the basis for the discussion that follows.
This document begins with a brief set of definitions relevant to the
subsequent sections. It then discusses classes of adversaries that
are perceived as viable threats against routing in the public
Internet. It continues to explore a range of attacks that might be
effected by these adversaries, against both path security and the
infrastructure upon which BGPSEC relies. It concludes with a brief
review of residual vulnerabilities.
2. Terminology
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.
The following security and routing terminology definitions are
employed in this document.
Adversary - An adversary is an entity (e.g., a person or an
organization) perceived as malicious, relative to the security policy
of a system. The decision to characterize an entity as an adversary
is made by those responsible for the security of a system. Often one
describes classes of adversaries with similar capabilities or
motivations, rather than specific individuals or organizations.
Attack - An attack is an action that attempts to violate the security
policy of a system, e.g., by exploiting a vulnerability. There is
often a many to one mapping of attacks to vulnerabilities, because
many different attacks may be used to exploit a vulnerability.
Autonomous System - An AS is a set of one or more IP networks
operated by a single administrative entity.
AS Number (ANS) - An ASN is a 2 or 4 byte number issued by a registry
to identify an AS in BGP.
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Certification Authority (CA) - An entity that issues digital
certificates (e.g., X.509 certificates) and vouches for the binding
between the data items in a certificate.
Countermeasure - A countermeasure is a procedure or technique that
thwarts an attack, preventing it from being successful. Often
countermeasures are specific to attacks or classes of attacks.
Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) - A path vector protocol used to convey
"reachability" information among autonomous systems, in support of
inter-domain routing.
False (Route) Origination - If an ISP originates a route for a prefix
that the ISP does not hold (and that it has not been authorized to
originate by the prefix holder, this is termed false route
origination.
Internet Service Provider (ISP) - An organization managing (and,
typically, selling,) Internet services to other organizations or
individuals.
Internet Number Resources (INRs) - IPv4 or IPv6 address space and
ASNs
Internet Registry - An organization that manages the allocation or
distribution of INRs. This encompasses the Internet Assigned Number
Authority (IANA), Regional Internet Registries (RIRs), National
Internet Registries (NIRs), and Local Internet registries (LIRs,
ISPs).
Man in the Middle (MITM) - A MITM is an entity that is able to
examine and modify traffic between two (or more) parties on a
communication path
Prefix - A prefix is an IP address and a mask used to specify a set
of addresses that are grouped together for purposes of routing.
Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) - A PKI is a collection of hardware,
software, people, policies, and procedures used to create, manage,
distribute, store, and revoke digital certificates.
Relying Parties (RPs) - An RP is an entity that makes use of signed
products from a PKI, i.e., relies on signed data that is verified
using certificates, and CRLs from a PKI.
RPKI Repository System - The RPKI repository system consists of a
distributed set of loosely synchronized databases
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Resource PKI (RPKI) - A PKI operated by the entities that manage
INRs, and that issues X509 certificates (and CRLs) that attest to the
holdings of INRs.
RPKI Signed Object - An RPKI signed object is a Cryptographic Message
Syntax (CMS)-encapsulated data object complying with the format and
semantics defined in [draft-ietf-sidr-signed-object-02.txt].
Route - In the Internet, a route is a prefix and an associated
sequence of ASNs that indicates a path via which traffic destined for
the prefix can be directed.
Route leak - A route leak is said to occur when AS-A advertises
routes that it has received from an AS-B to AS-A's neighbors, but AS-
A is not viewed as a transit provider for the prefixes in the route.
Threat - A threat is a motivated, capable adversary. An adversary
that is not motivated to launch an attack is not a threat. An
adversary that is motivated but not capable of launching an attack
also is not a threat.
Vulnerability - A vulnerability is a flaw or weakness in a system's
design, implementation, or operation and management that could be
exploited to violate the security policy of a system.
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3. Threat Characterization
The following classes of threats are addressed in this document.
BGP speakers - A BGP speaker, e.g., an ISP or a multi-homed non-ISP
subscriber, may be a threat. (For simplicity, the remainder of this
document refers to BGP speakers as ISPs.) An ISP may be motivated to
cause BGP routers controlled by the ISP to emit update messages with
inaccurate routing info. Such updates might cause traffic to flow via
paths that would otherwise be rejected as less advantageous by other
ISPs. Because the ISP controls the BGP routers that it operates, it
is in a position to modify their operation. Routers operated by the
ISP are vehicles for mounting MITM attacks on both control and data
plane traffic. If the ISP participates in the RPKI, it will have at
least CA resource certificate and may be able to generate an
arbitrary number of subordinate CA certificates and ROAs. It will be
authorized to populate (and may even host) its own repository
publication point. If it implements BGPSEC, it will have the ability
to issue certificates for its routers, and to sign updates in a
fashion that will be recognized by BGPSEC-enabled ISP neighbors.
Hackers - Hackers are considered a threat. Hackers might assume
control of network management computers and routers operated by ISPs,
including ISPs that implement BGPSEC. In such cases, hackers would be
able to act as a rogue ISP (see above). It is assumed that hackers
generally do not have the capability to effect MITM attacks on most
links between ISPs. Hackers might be recruited, without their
knowledge, by criminals or by nations, to act on their behalf.
Criminals - Criminals may be a threat. Criminals might persuade (via
threats or extortion) an ISP to act as rogue ISP (see above), and
thus be able to effect a wide range of attacks. Criminals might
persuade telecom staff to enable MITM attacks on links between
routers. The motivation for criminals may include the ability to
extort money from other ISPs or ISP clients, e.g., by adversely
affecting routing for these ISPs or clients. They may wish to
manipulate routing to conceal the sources of spam or of DoS attacks.
Registries - Any registry in the RPKI could be a threat. Staff at the
registry are capable of manipulating repository content or
mismanaging RPKI certificates. These actions could adversely affect
the operation of an ISP or a client of an ISP. The staff could be
motivated to do this based on political pressure from the nation in
which it operates (see below).
Nations - A nation may be a threat. A nation may control one or more
ISPs that operate in the nation, and thus can cause them to act as
rogue ISPs. A nation may have a technical active wiretapping
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capability (e.g., within its territory) that enables it to effect
MITM attacks on inter-ISP traffic. It may have an ability to attack
and take control of routers or management network computers of ISPs
in other countries. A nation may control a registry that operates
within its territory, and might force the registry to act as a rogue
capacity. National threat motivations include the desire to control
the flow of traffic to/from the nation or to divert traffic destined
for other nations (for passive or active wiretapping, including DoS).
A manifest associated with a CA's repository publication point
contains a list of:
4. Attacks
This section describes classes of attacks that may be effected
against Internet routing. Attacks are classified based on the target
of the attack, as an element of the routing system, or the routing
security infrastructure on which BGPSEC relies. In general, attacks
of interest are ones that attempt to violate the integrity or
authenticity of BGP traffic, or which violate the authorizations
associated with entities participating in the RPKI. Attacks that
violate the implied confidentiality of routing traffic are not
considered significant (see 4.1 below).
4.1. Active wiretapping of links between routers
An adversary may attack the links that connect BGP routers. Passive
attacks are not considered, because it is assumed that most of the
info carried by BGP will otherwise be accessible to adversaries.
Several classes of adversaries are assumed to be capable of MITM
effecting attacks against the control plane traffic. MITM attacks may
be directed against BGP, BGPSEC, or against TCP or IP. Such attacks
include replay of selected BGP messages, selective modification of
BGP messages, and DoS attacks against BGP routers.
4.2. Attacks on a BGP router
An adversary may attack a BGP router, whether it implements BGPSEC or
not. Any adversary that controls routers legitimately, or that can
assume control of a router, is assumed to be able to effect the types
of attacks described below. Note that any router behavior that can be
ascribed to a local routing policy decision is not considered to be
an attack. This is because such behavior could be explained as a
result of local policy settings, and thus is beyond the scope of what
BGPSEC can detect as unauthorized behavior. Thus, for example, a
router may fail to propagate some or all route withdrawals or effect
"route leaks". (These behaviors are not precluded by the
specification for BGP, and might be the result of a local policy that
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is not publicly disclosed. As a result, they are not considered
attacks.)
AS Insertion: A router might insert one or more ASNs, other than
its own ASN, into an update message. This violates the BGP spec
and thus is considered an attack.
False (route) Origination: A router might originate a route for
a prefix, when the AS that the router represents is not
authorized to originate routes for that prefix. This is an
attack.
Secure Path Downgrade: A router might remove signatures from a
BGPSEC update that it receives, when forwarding this update to a
BGPSEC-enabled neighbor. This behavior violates the BGPSEC spec
and thus is considered an attack.
Invalid Signature Insertion: A router might emit a signed update
with a "bad" signature, i.e., a signature that cannot be
validated by other BGPSEC routers. (This might occur due to use
of a revoked or expired certificate, a computational error, or a
syntactic error.) This behavior violates the BGPSEC spec and
thus is considered an attack.
Stale Path Announcement: An announcement may be propagated with
an origination signature segment expiry value that is not
current. This behavior violates the BGPSEC spec and is
considered a possible replay attack.
Premature Path Announcement Expiration: A router might emit a
signed update with an origin expiry time that is very short. The
BGPSEC protocol specification does not mandate a minimum expiry
time. However, an immediate neighbor of a route originator
should expect to see an expiry time that not substantially less
than XX in the future. Later routers along a path generally
cannot determine if a shorter expiry time is "suspicious" since
they cannot know how long a route may have been held by an
earlier AS, prior to being released. Thus this consideration
applies only to an immediate neighbor of a route originator.
MITM Attack: A cryptographic key used for point-to-point
security (e.g., TCP-AO or IPsec) between two BGP routers might
be compromised (e.g., by extraction from a router). This would
enable an adversary to effect MITM attacks on the link(s) where
the key is used.
Compromised Private Key: The private key associated with an RPKI
EE certificate issued to a router might be compromised by an
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attack against the router. An adversary with access to this key
would be able to generate updates that appear to be from this
router (or from any routers that share this key and
certificate). If the adversary controlled another ISP, it could
use this key to forge signatures that appear to come from the
router(s) in question, thus making it appear that those routers
were misbehaving.
Replay Attack: An update may be signed and announced, and later
withdrawn. The adversary controlling intermediate routers does
not propagate the withdrawal but instead re-announces (i.e.,
replays) the previous announcement within its expiry time if it
has not yet expired.
4.3. Attacks on ISP management computers (non-CA computers)
An adversary may choose to attack computers used by an ISP to manage
its network, especially its routers. Such attacks might be effected
by an adversary that has compromised the security of these computers.
This might be effected via remote attacks, extortion of selected ISP
staff, etc. If an adversary compromises NOC computers, it can execute
any management function that authorized ISP staff would have
performed. Thus the adversary could modify local routing policy to
change preferences, to black-hole certain routes, etc. This type of
behavior cannot be externally detected as an attack.
If the ISP participates in the RPKI, the adversary could manipulate
the RP tools that extract data from the RPKI, causing the output of
these tools to be corrupted in various ways. For example, an attack
of this sort could cause the ISP to view valid routes as not
validated, which could alter its routing behavior.
If the adversary invoked the tool used to manage the repository
publication point for this ISP, it could delete any objects stored
there (certificates, CRLs, manifests, ROAs, or subordinate CA
certificates). This could affect the routing status of entities that
have allocations/assignments from this ISP (e.g., by deleting their
CA certificates).
An attacker could invoke the tool used to request certificate
revocation, causing router certificates, ROAs, or subordinate CA
certificates to be revoked. An attack of this sort could affect not
only this ISP, but also any ISPs that receive allocations/assignments
from it, e.g., because their CA certificates were revoked.
It the ISP is BGPSEC-enabled, an attack of this sort could cause the
affected ISP to be viewed as not BGPSEC-enabled, possibly making
routes it emits be less preferred.
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If an adversary invoked a tool used to request ROAs, it could
effectively re-allocate some of the prefixes allocated/assigned to
the ISP (e.g., by modifying the origin AS in ROAs). This might cause
other BGPSEC-enabled ISPs, and other RPKI-enabled ISPs, to view the
ISP as no longer originating routes for these prefixes. Multi-homed
subscribers of this ISP who received a PA allocation from the ISP
might find their traffic was now routed via other connections.
If the ISP is BGPSEC-enabled, and the adversary invoked a tool used
to request certificates, it could replace valid certificates for
routers with ones that might be rejected by BGPSEC-enabled
neighbors.
4.4. Attacks on a repository publication point
A critical element of the RPKI is the repository system. An adversary
might attack a repository, or a publication point within a
repository, to adversely affect routing.
This section considers only those attacks that can be launched by any
adversary who controls a computer hosting one or more repository
publication points, without access to the cryptographic keys needed
to generate valid RPKI signed products. Such attacks might be
effected by an inside or an external threat. Because all repository
objects are digitally signed, attacks of this sort translate into DoS
attacks against the RPKI RPs. There are a few distinct forms of such
attacks, as described below.
Note first that the RPKI calls for RPs to cache the data they acquire
and verify from the repository system. Attacks that delete signed
products, that insert products with "bad" signatures, that tamper
with object signatures, or that replace newer objects with older
(valid) ones, can be detected by RPs (with a few exceptions). RPs are
expected to make use of the cached repository data until attacks that
violate the integrity of publication points (and which are detected)
are resolved. Thus the impact of such attacks is mitigated in part by
the design of the repository system.
If an adversary inserts an object into a publication point, and the
object has a "bad" signature, the object will not be accepted and
used by RPs.
If an adversary modifies any signed product at a publication point,
the signature on the product will fail, and cause RPs to not accept
it. This is equivalent to deleting the object, on many respects.
If an adversary deletes one or more CA certificates, ROAs or the CA's
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CRL at a publication point, the manifest for that publication point
will allow an RP to detect this attack. (The RP would be very unhappy
if there is no CRL for the CA instance anyway.) An RP can continue to
use the last valid instance of the deleted object as a local policy
option), thus minimizing the impact of such an attack.
If an adversary deletes a manifest (and does not replace it with an
older instance), that is detectable by an RP, and should result in
the CA being notified of the problem. An RP can continue to use the
last valid instance of the deleted object as a local policy option),
thus minimizing the impact of such an attack.
If an adversary deletes newly added CA certificates or ROAs, and
replaces the current manifest with the previous manifest, the
manifest (and the CRL that it matches) will be "stale" (see [ietf-
sidr-manifest]). This alerts an RP that there may be a problem, and,
hopefully, the CA responsible for the publication point will be asked
to remedy the problem (republish the missing CA certificates and/or
ROAs). An RP cannot know the content of the new certificates or ROAs
that are not present, but it can continue to use what it has cached.
If a CA revokes a CA certificate or a ROA (via deleting the
corresponding EE certificate), and the adversary tries to reinstate
that CA certificate or ROA, the adversary would have to rollback the
CRL and the manifest to undo this action by the CA. As above, this
would make the CRL and manifest stale, and this is detectable by RPs.
An RP cannot know which CA certificates or ROAs were deleted, and so
it would use the cached instances of the affected objects. Here too
one hopes that the CA will be notified of the problem and will
attempt to remedy the error.
In the attack scenarios above, when a CRL or manifest is described as
stale, this means that the next issue date for the CRL or manifest
has passed. Until the next issue date, an RP will not be detect the
attack. Thus it behooves CAs to select CRL/manifest lifetimes (the
two are linked) that represent an acceptable tradeoff between risk
and operational burdens.
Attacks effected by adversaries that are legitimate managers of
publication points can have much greater effects, and are discussed
below under attacks on or by CAs.
4.5. Attacks on an RPKI CA
Every entity to which INRs have been allocated/assigned is a CA in
the RPKI. Each CA is nominally responsible for managing the
repository publication point for the set of signed products that it
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generates. (An INR holder may choose to outsource the operation of
the RPKI CA function, and the associated publication point. In such
cases, the organization operating on behalf of the INR holder becomes
the CA, from an operational and security perspective. The following
discussion does not distinguish outsourced CA operations.)
Note that attacks attributable to a CA may be the result of malice by
the CA (i.e., the CA is the adversary) or they may result from a
compromise of the CA.
All of adversaries listed in Section 2 are presumed to be capable of
launching attacks against the computers used to perform CA functions.
Some adversaries might effect an attack on a CA by violating
personnel or physical security controls as well. The distinction
between CA as adversary vs. CA as an attack victim is important. Only
in the latter case should one expect the CA to remedy problems caused
by a attack once the attack has been detected. Note that most of the
attacks described below do not require disclosure of a CA's private
key to an adversary. If the adversary can gain control of the
computer used to issue certificates, it can effect these attacks,
even though the private key for the CA remains "secure" (i.e., not
disclosed to unauthorized parties). However, if the CA is not the
adversary, and if the CA's private key is not compromised, then
recovery from these attacks is much easier. This motivates use of
hardware security modules to protect CA keys, at least for higher
tiers in the RPKI.
An attack by a CA can result in revocation or replacement of any of
the certificates that the CA issued. Revocation of a certificate
should cause RPs to delete the (formerly) valid certificate (and
associated signed object, in the case of a revoked EE certificate)
that they have cached. This would cause repository objects (e.g., CA
certificates and ROAs) that are verified under that certificate to be
considered invalid, transitively. As a result, RPs would not consider
as valid any ROAs or signed updates based on these certificates,
which would make routes dependent on them to be less preferred.
Because a CA that revokes a certificate is authorized to do so, this
sort of attack cannot be detected, intrinsically, by most RPs.
However, the entities affected by the revocation or replacement of CA
certificates can be expected to detect the attack and contact the CA
to effect remediation. If the CA was not the adversary, it should be
able to issue new certificates and restore the publication point.
An adversary that controls the CA for a publication point can publish
signed products that create more subtle types of DoS attacks against
RPs. For example, such an attacker could create subordinate CA
certificates with Subject Information Access (SIA) pointers that lead
RPs on a "wild goose chase" looking for additional publication points
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and signed products. An attacker could publish certificates with very
brief validity intervals, or CRLs and manifests that become "stale"
very quickly. This sort of attack would cause RPs to have to access
repositories more frequently, and that might interfere with
legitimate accesses by other RPs.
An attacker with this capability could create very large numbers of
ROAs to be processed (with prefixes that are consistent with the
allocation for the CA), and correspondingly large manifests. An
attacker could create very deep subtrees with many ROAs per
publication point, etc. All of these types of DoS attacks against RPs
are feasible within the syntactic and semantic constraints
established for RPKI certificates, CRLs, and signed objects.
An attack that results in revocation and replacement (e.g., key
rollover or certificate renewal) of a CA certificate would cause RPs
to replace the old, valid certificate with the new one. This new
certificate might contain a public key that does not correspond to
the private key held by the certificate subject. That would cause
objects signed by that subject to be rejected as invalid, and prevent
the affected subject from being able to sign new objects. As above,
RPs would not consider as valid any ROAs issued under the affected CA
certificate, and updates based on router certificates issued by the
affected CA would be rejected. This would make routes dependent on
these signed products to be less preferred. However, the constraints
imposed by the use of RFC 3779 [RFC3779] extensions do prevent a
compromised CA from issuing (valid) certificates with INRs outside
the scope of the CA, thus limiting the impact of the attack.
An adversary that controls a CA could issue CA certificates with
overlapping INRs to different entities, when no transfer of INRs is
intended. This could cause confusion for RPs as conflicting ROAs
could be issued by the distinct CAs.
An adversary could replace a CA certificate, use the corresponding
private key to issue new signed products, and then publish them at a
publication point controlled by the attacker. This would effectively
transfer the affected INRs to the adversary, or to a third party of
his choosing. The result would be to cause RPs to view the entity
that controls the private key in question as the legitimate INR
holder. Again the constraints imposed by the use of RFC 3779
extensions do prevent a compromised CA from issuing (valid)
certificates with INRs outside the scope of the CA, thus limiting the
impact of the attack.
Finally, an entity that manages a repository publication point can
inadvertently act as an attacker (as first noted by Pogo). For
example, a CA might fail to replace its own certificate in a timely
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fashion (well before it expires). If might fail to issue its CRL and
manifest prior to expiration, creating stale instances of these
products that cause concern for RPs. A CA with many subordinate CAs
(e.g., an RIR or NIR) might fail to distribute the expiration times
for the CA certificates that it issues. An ISP with many ROAs might
do the same for the EE certificates associated with the ROAs it
generates. A CA could rollover its key, but fail to reissue
subordinate CA certificates under its new key. Poor planning with
regard to rekey intervals for managed CAs could impose undue burdens
for RPs, despite a lack of malicious intent. All of these example of
mismanagement could adversely affect RPs, despite the absence of
malicious intent.
5. Residual Vulnerabilities
The RPKI, upon which BGPSEC relies, has several residual
vulnerabilities that were been discussed in the preceding text
(Sections 4.4 and 4.5). These vulnerabilities are of two principle
forms:
- the RPKI repository system may be attacked in ways that make
its contents unavailable, or not current. It is anticipated that
RPs will cope with this vulnerability through local caching of
repository data, and through local settings that tolerate
expired or stale repository data.
- any CA in the RPKI may misbehave within the bounds of the
resources allocated to it, e.g., it may issue certificates with
duplicate resource allocations or revoke certificates
inappropriately. This vulnerability is intrinsic in any PKI. It
is anticipated that RPs will deal with this through
BGPSEC has a separate set of residual vulnerabilities:
- BGPSEC is not able to prevent what is usually referred to as
route leaks, because BGP itself does not distinguish between
transit and non-transit ASes- BGPSEC signatures do not protect
all attributes associated with an AS_path. Some of these
attributes are employed as inputs to routing decisions. Thus
attacks that modify (or strip) these other attributes are not
detected by BGPSEC.
6. Security Considerations
A threat model is, by definition, a security-centric document. Unlike
a protocol description, a threat model does not create security
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problems nor purport to address security problems. This model
postulates a set of threats (i.e., motivated, capable adversaries)
and examines classes of attacks that these threats are capable of
effecting, based on the motivations ascribed to the threats. It
describes the impact of these types of attacks on BGPSEC, including
on the RPKI on which BGPSEC relies.
7. IANA Considerations
[Note to IANA, to be removed prior to publication: there are no IANA
considerations stated in this version of the document.]
8. Acknowledgements
The author wishes to thank . . .
9. References
9.1. Normative References
[RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.
9.2. Informative References
[RFC4272]
Murphy, S., "BGP Security Vulnerabilities Analysis", RFC 4272,
January 2006
[RFC4301]
Kent, S. and Seo, K., "Security Architecture for the Internet
Protocol", RFC 4301, December, 2005.
[RFC3779]
Lynn, C., Kent, S., Seo, K., X.509 Extensions for IP Addresses
and AS Identifiers, RFC 3779, June 2004.
[Kent2000]
Kent, S., Lynn, C., and Seo, K., "Design and Analysis of the
Secure Border Gateway Protocol (S-BGP)", IEEE DISCEX Conference,
January, 2000.
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[RFC5925]
Touch, J., et al., "The TCP Authentication Option",
RFC 5925, June 2010.
[I-D.ietf-sidr-arch]
Lepinski, M. and S. Kent, "An Infrastructure to Support
Secure Internet Routing", draft-ietf-sidr-arch-11.txt
(work in progress), September 2010.
[I-D.sidr.signed-object]
Lepinski, M, Chi, A., and Kent, S., "Signed Object Template for
the Resource Public Key Infrastructure", draft-ietf-sidr-signed-
object-01.txt, (work in progress), December 2010.
[I-D.sidr-res-certs]
Huston, G., Michaelson, G., and Loomans, R. "A Profile for X.509
PKIX Resource Certificates", draft-ietf-sidr-res-certs-21.txt
(work in progress), December 2010.
[I-D.roa-format]
Lepinski, M., Kent, S., and Kong, D., "A Profile for Route Origin
Authorizations (ROAs)", draft-ietf-sidr-roa-format-09.txt,
(work in progress), November 2010.
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Author's Address
Stephen Kent BBN Technologies 10 Moulton St. Cambridge, MA 02138 USA
Email: kent@bbn.com
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