Re: [quicwg/base-drafts] Add initial threat model to security considerations (#2925)

[Martin Thomson <[e-mail]>]

martinthomson approved this pull request.

Reviewing the amended stuff.  All goodness, though I have a suggestion or two.

I think that @janaiyengar promised to take another look at this, but for me I'm getting tired of staring at this.  I want to merge this very soon.

> +
+#### Server-Side DoS
+
+Computing the server's first flight for a full handshake is potentially
+expensive, requiring both a signature and a key exchange computation.  In order
+to prevent computational DoS attacks, QUIC incorporates a cheap token exchange
+mechanism which allows servers to validate a client's IP address prior to doing
+any expensive computations at the cost of a single round trip.  After a
+successful handshake, servers can issue new tokens to a client which will allow
+new connection establishment without incurring this cost.
+
+#### On-Path Handshake Termination
+
+An on-path attacker can force the QUIC handshake to fail by replacing either the
+client or server Initial messages with invalid messages.  An off-path attacker
+can also mount this attack by racing the Initials.  Once valid Initial messages

As I said elsewhere, this could be simplied to:

> An on-path or off-path attacker can force the QUIC handshake to fail by replacing or racing Initial packets.  Once valid Initial packets [...]

Note: "packet" and not "message".

> +
+Attackers are additionally categorized as either on-path attackers or off-path
+attackers; see Section 3.5 of {{?RFC3552}}.  An on-path attacker can read,
+modify, or remove any packet it observes such that it no longer reaches its
+destination, while an off-path attacker observes the packets, but cannot prevent
+the original packet from reaching its intended destination.  An off-path
+attacker can also transmit arbitrary packets.
+
+Properties of the handshake, protected packets, and connection migration are
+considered separately.
+
+
+### Handshake {#handshake-properties}
+
+The QUIC handshake incorporates the TLS 1.3 handshake and enjoys the
+cryptographic properties described in {{?RFC8446}}; Appendix E.1.

```suggestion
cryptographic properties described in {{?TLS13=RFC8446}}; Appendix E.1.
```

> +
+### Handshake {#handshake-properties}
+
+The QUIC handshake incorporates the TLS 1.3 handshake and enjoys the
+cryptographic properties described in {{?RFC8446}}; Appendix E.1.
+
+In addition to those properties, the QUIC handshake is intended to provide some
+defense against DoS attacks on the handshake, as described below.
+
+#### Anti-Amplification
+
+Because the QUIC handshake can occur without a transport-level round-trip, the
+QUIC server's first flight may be sent to a client whose address it cannot
+validate.  This flight may be long and therefore potentially allows the server
+to be used as a DoS reflector/amplifier.  The mechanisms described in
+{{validate-handshake}} restrict the amplification to a factor of three.

Maybe instead:

> Address validation ({{address-validation}}) is used to verify that an entity that claims a given address is able to receive packets at that address.  Address validation limits amplification attack targets to addresses for which an attacker is either on-path or off-path.
>
> Prior to validation, endpoints are limited in what they are able to send.  During the handshake, a server cannot send more than three times the data it receives; clients that initiate new connections or migrate to a new network path are limited to [um, I can't find a concrete limit in the document].

> +protection ensures that valid packets are only generated by endpoints which
+possess the key material established during the handshake; see {{handshake}} and
+{{handshake-properties}}.  Similarly, any active attacker that observes QUIC
+packets and attempts to insert new data or modify existing data in those packets
+should not be able to generate packets deemed valid by the receiving endpoint.
+
+A spoofing attack, in which an active attacker rewrites unprotected parts of a
+QUIC packet that it forwards or injects, such as the source or destination
+address, is only effective if the attacker can forward packets to the original
+endpoint.  Packet protection ensures that the packet payloads can only be
+processed by the endpoints that completed the handshake, and invalid QUIC
+packets are ignored by those endpoints.
+
+An attacker can also modify the boundaries between QUIC packets and UDP
+datagrams, causing multiple packets to be coalesced into a single datagram, or
+splitting coalesced packets into multiple datagrams.  Such modification has no

```suggestion
splitting coalesced packets into multiple datagrams.  Aside from datagrams containing Initial packets, which require padding, modification has no
```

-- 
You are receiving this because you are subscribed to this thread.
Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub:
https://github.com/quicwg/base-drafts/pull/2925#pullrequestreview-345645852