Re: [DNSOP] DNSOP: question about hardening "something like mDNS" against attacks

[Jared Mauch <[e-mail]>]

On Mon, Oct 26, 2020 at 06:42:21PM +0100, Toerless Eckert wrote:
> Thanks, Jared
> 
> Somehow everybody tries to escape answering the question asked by giving
> their correct but orthogonal pet problem space answer. Ted correctly claims
> the protocols suck security wise, and you correctly claim that there are a lot more
> deployment considerations in face of risky underlays.
> 
> At this point in time i am just trying to get an RFC out the door, and Bens
> security review was asking for options how to operationalize the choosen protocol
> to be hardened. My answer was the heuristic.
> 
> If the anwer of the experts is "do not harden implementations of existing protocols",
> but only improve protocols or eliminate security risks from underlays, i think
> that is not a good strategy to show to implementors trying to understand how
> to best harden existing protocols, but i will happily take that guidance
> and remove the text about the suggested heuristics.

	I think we often forget several things about the security aspects
of devices, like physical access == root (for example), on-link or on-network
attackers will always have an advantage available to them.

	Things like mDNS are only as secure as their local link, and if an attacker
is on-link there are risks that can be controlled for and those that can't.

	We have had problems elsewhere as md5/tcp-md5 provide engouh mutual peer
authentication to be of value, but can be broken with a persistent on-link or
on-path attacker.

	I was also just providing examples of other protocols (dhcp, ra) that
share the same on-link risks.

	- Jared

-- 
Jared Mauch  | pgp key available via finger from [e-mail]
clue++;      | http://puck.nether.net/~jared/  My statements are only mine.