Re: [secdir] Secdir review of draft-ietf-behave-nat64-learn-analysis-03.txt

[jouni korhonen <[e-mail]>]

Hi,

Thank you for the review. See my comments inline.

On Apr 10, 2012, at 3:36 PM, Alexey Melnikov wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> I have reviewed this document as part of the security directorate's
> ongoing effort to review all IETF documents being processed by the
> IESG.  These comments were written primarily for the benefit of the
> security area directors. Document editors and WG chairs should treat
> these comments just like any other last call comments.
> 
> The document reviews possible solutions for the problem of allowing hosts and applications to learn if an IPv6 address is synthesized, which means a NAT64 is used to reach the IPv4 network or Internet. The document analyzes pros and cons of various approaches and also concludes with some recommendations about which approach is recommended.
> 
> Overall I think the Security Considerations section is reasonable (see some minor comments below). I think it is reasonable for the document to point to RFC 6147 for DSN64 related Security Considerations. The document also talks about Man-in-the-middle and Denial-of-Service attacks caused by forging of information required for IPv6 synthesis from corresponding IPv4 addresses.

Good point. We'll add the reference.


> 
> Additionally, the document says:
> 
>   The DHCPv6 and RA
>   based approaches are vulnerable for the forgery as the attacker may
>   send forged RAs or act as a rogue DHCPv6 server (unless DHCPv6
>   authentication or SEND are used).
> 
> I think some Informative references to relevant documents should be inserted here in order to help readers find relevant information.

Will add references to RFC3315 and RFC3971.

> 
>   If the attacker is already able to
>   modify and forge DNS responses (flags, addresses of know IPv4-only
>   servers, records, etc), ability to influence local address synthesis
>   is likely of low additional value.  Also, a DNS-based mechanism is
>   only as secure as the method used to configure the DNS server's IP
>   addresses on the host.  Therefore, if the host cannot trust e.g.
>   DHCPv6 it cannot trust the DNS server learned via DHCPv6 either,
>   unless the host has a way to authenticate all DNS responses.
> 
> Maybe add an explicit DNSSEC reference here?

Will add a reference to RFC4033.


> 
> 
> One other possible issue that you should consider:
> 
> 5.1.2.  Analysis and discussion
> 
>   The CONs of the proposal are listed below:
> 
> I don't know how much of an issue this is in a real world, but one thought:
> 
> Can use of a well known IPv4-only FQDN be used for tracking applications/hosts which try to employ this algorithm? Such IPv4-only host might be an attractive target for compromise, if such information is valuable to an attacker.

I guess it could be possible in theory.. if we assume the
DNS server hosting the IPv4-only FQDN would be hostile,
which is not a realistic assumption imho.


> 
> (This might also apply to other DNS methods.)
> 
> 
> Other comments (not really SecDir related):
> 
> I found the Abstract to be quite hard to read. Maybe reword to use shorter/simpler sentences?

Ok. We'll look into it.


> 
> 5.1.1.  Solution description
> 
>   The Well-Known Name may be assigned by IANA or provided some third
>   party, including application or operating system vendor.  The IPv4
>   address corresponding to the Well-Known Name may be resolved via A
>   query to Well-Known Name, assigned by IANA, or hard-coded.
> 
> Is IANA already providing one of these? If not, why speculate about this, as there is no action for IANA specified in this document.

IANA is going to provide one. I think it is good to have
this part still in the document. It was a non-trivial issue
who is going to host the well-known name.

- Jouni

>