Report on Network security

Table of Contents

1 Introduction 3

2 Importance of network security 3

3 Technologies to ensure network security 4

4 Differences between IPv6 and IPv4 4

4.1 Threats to networked computers 5

4.1.1 Logic attacks 6

Logic attacks are those that aim for taking the privilege of already extant possibilities and vulnerabilities as well as the bugs in the program for the intention of giving the crash to the system. For exploiting such attacks there are many cyber criminals, because they were aiming t get illegal access to the system, or alternatively of downgrading the performance of a given network. 6

4.1.2 Resource attacks 6

This type of attack results in to botnet or the on that is also known as zombie. If this kind 6

of botnet attack become successful, the assailant become able to launch off many later assaults rom all those hundreds of zombies that had already infected the machines, all this only to aim a single target victim. 6

4.2 Key challenges of IPv6 and IPSEC 6

5 Mitigation of threats by Ipv6 and IPSEC 6

6 References 7

List of Figures 

Figure 1: IPv4 Packet Header Format 5

Figure 2: IPv6 Packet Header Format 5

1 Introduction of Network security

Networking is needed while sharing resources or information between different devices. The protocol of internet is getting more and more popularity, as the networks are expanding in our everyday life. A lot of research is still going on and a lot of different transition mechanisms have been developed but still a lot of areas are needed to be covered yet. The next generation internet protocol proposed is Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) through the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) in order to supersede the already present Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4). In order to incorporate the integration of IPv6 in the already present networks, there are many transition mechanisms proposed through IETF IPng transition working group (Manjaiah & Hanumanthappa, 2008). 

Two transition mechanism get evaluated through this work, namely 6-over-4, and IPv6 in IPv4 tunneling, as they relate to the performance of IPv6. In this paper many of the usual threat against IPv6 are going to be discussed. There is also a compare and contrast among those threats in order to get information about how these threats or the threats that are similar to them can affect IPv6 networking. There is also a consideration on some newly introduced threats that are related to IPv6. Evaluation of the already present abilities of the available products is in this paper, like how can inherently protocol properties of IPv6 can affect the threat nature. This is described by giving the overview of the present best practice surrounding the design f an IPv4 internet edge network and then there is also a review on how IPv4 edge network will require to evolve so that its evolution can secure the addition of IPv6.

2 Importance of network security

We can say that IPv6 security is a similar as IPv4 in many of the ways. The basic process is always remining unchanged like transporting packets across the network. And there some protocols like upper layer protocol that transport the real data of the application, remain unaffected. It is obvious that IPv4 offer the support of IPsec, but it is still on choice. But we see that the support for IPsec in IPv6 implementation should not be a chance but the requirement and is needed. As IPv6 mandates the inclusion of IP Security (IPsec), it can be saying that IPv6 is way more secure than IPv4. Ut this can be true in an environment that is ideal with perfectly coded applications, but on the other hand the same issues that affect IPv4 IPsec deployment can also affect and cause problems to IPv6 IPsec deployment. So, IPv6 deployment is preferred to be done without any kind of cryptographic protection. Moreover as we know that most of the security breaches happen to occur at the application level, even the successful deployment of IPsec with IPv6 will not give guarantee for the additional security of those attacks who don’t have the ability to examine and evaluate the source of attack (Cisco. com, 2018). IPsec is an Internet security protocol incorporated in to 2 layers that is called network layer in order to secure the network from the users who are unauthorized by the help of origin authentication, Data confidentiality and Data Integrity. But there are still some differences between IPv4 and IPv6 behind the mandate of IPsec. These differences can cause change in type of attacks that IPv6 network are supposingly going to have. It is quite not possible that the average organization will transfer completely to IPv6 in short time; instead of that it will likely to maintain the connectivity of IPv4 all along the multilayer migration toward IPv6 (Oh H, et al., 2006). The thorough treatment for the threats is still not known in Data such kind of network need to face the design modifications in order to address those attacks. Security through IPv6 is a big and complicated subject. These networks typically house some element of public services (Domain Name System [DNS], HTTP, Simple Mail Transfer Protocol [SMTP]) and a filtering router or firewall protecting their internal resources.

3 Technologies to ensure network security

IPv6 reconnaissance is different from IPv4 reconnaissance [2], if talking with the regards of technology in two basic and major ways. The very first is the ping sweep or the port scan, when require to enumerate the host on subnet, is way more difficult to achieve in IPv6 network. The second way is the new multicast addresses in IPv6 that allow the adversary to find as set of key systems (routers, Network Time Protocol [NTP] servers, and so on) more easily. If talking behind these 2 differences, we can say that reconnaissance techniques in IPv6 are almost as similar as is IPv4. Moreover, the networks in IPv6 are way more dependent on ICMPv6 in order to function in proper manners. Aggressive filtering of ICMPv6 can make negative effects on the functioning of network. In the area of IPv6 the basic function of mitigation that can have access to other IP devices is based on the policy that is still implemented with firewalling and ACLs on end hosts and internetworking devices. But there are many differences that are significant between the IPv6 and IPv4 headers that can change the way that how the administrator will deploy those techniques.

4 Differences between IPv6 and IPv4

Instead of allowing for only 32-bit IP, IPv6 allows for 128-bit IP.With the increased IP address size, up to 2128 or 

3.4 x 1038 different IP addresses can be defined. Multicast addresses Increased use of efficient one-to-many 

communications. Anycast addresses Redundant services using nonunique addresses

Instead of allowing for only 32-bit IP, IPv6 allows for 128-bit IP.With the increased IP address size, up to 2128 or 

3.4 x 1038 different IP addresses can be defined. Multicast addresses Increased use of efficient one-to-many 

communications. Anycast addresses Redundant services using nonunique addresses

Instead of allowing for only 32-bit IP, IPv6 allows for 128-bit IP.With the increased IP address size, up to 2128 or 

3.4 x 1038 different IP addresses can be defined. Multicast addresses Increased use of efficient one-to-many 

communications. Anycast addresses Redundant services using nonunique addresses

instead of giving access to only 32-bit IP, IPv6 allows for 128-bit IP. With the increased IP address size, up to 2128 or 3.4 x 1038 many different IP addresses can be explained. Use to many efficient one to many communications is increased by multicast addresses. There are some attacks types that are not changed basically through the appearance of the IPv6 protocol. No matter how many security improvements are there in new IPv6 protocol, IPv6 networks are still having danger for the different types of the attacks as they are still exposed to them. Some possibilities are still here, so there are many types of threats that can harm the IPv6 network potentially. There are some attacks types  known in IPv4 that are not changed basically through the appearance of the IPv6 protocol which states that these threats can affect both IPv4 as well as IPv6 network (AbouSalem & Ashabrawy, 2018).

Figure 1: IPv4 Packet Header Format

Figure 2: IPv6 Packet Header Format

4.1 Threats to networked computers of Network security

Seven different types of network threats are describing here that are Spoofing, Sniffing, Mapping, Hijacking, Trojans, DoS and DDoS, and Social engineering. Worms, Trojan horses, and DoS that are also known as denial of service. These types of attacks are usually used to malevolently in order to consume or destroy the network that is given in the resource. Times when accompanying serves and the poorly configures hosts act like threats for the security of the network as they do not eat up the resources for no better reason (Networkmonitoring. org, 2020; Proofpoint. com, 2020).

4.1.1 Logic attacks of Network security

Logic attacks are those that aim for taking the privilege of already extant possibilities and vulnerabilities as well as the bugs in the program for the intention of giving the crash to the system. For exploiting such attacks there are many cyber criminals, because they were aiming t get illegal access to the system, or alternatively of downgrading the performance of a given network.

4.1.2 Resource attacks of Network security

This type of attack results in to botnet or the on that is also known as zombie. If this kind 

of botnet attack become successful, the assailant become able to launch off many later assaults rom all those hundreds of zombies that had already infected the machines, all this only to aim a single target victim.

4.2 Key challenges of IPv6 and IPSEC of Network security

According to IPv6 protocol specification, all IPv6 nodes must be capable of processing routing headers. 

Unfortunately, routing headers can be used to avoid access controls based on destination addresses. Such behavior 

can produce some security problems. There is a possibility that an intruder sends a packet to a publicly accessible 

address with a routing header containing a ‘‘forbidden’’ address (address on the victim network). In that case the 

publicly accessible host will forward the packet to a destination address stated in the routing header (‘‘forbidden’’ 

address) even though that destination address is filtered. By spoofing packet source addresses an intruder can easily 

initiate a denial of service attack by using any publicly accessible host for redirecting attack packets

All the IPv6 nodes should be able of the processing routing headers according to the IPv6 protocol specification. But based on the destination addresses, router headers can be utilized to avoid access control. These kinds of attitudes can create some security issues. This is quite possible that the intruder will send a packet to publicly accessible address having the router header that also contain a ‘‘forbidden’’ address (address on the victim network). This is case when publicly accessible host is able to forward this packet to that address written on the router header  (‘‘forbidden’’ address) even after the filtration of the destination address (Sharma, 2010). An intruder can get start a denial service attack thought he use of publicly accessible hosting order to redirect the attack packets, by spoofing the packet source addresses. Filter unneeded services at the firewall—Like in IPv4, your public and internal systems will not be reachable to the services or maybe they do not need to be reach there (Hanumanthappa & Manjaiah, 2008). There is still a hope that some tools like IPsec will extract the requirement for firewalls, there will be the years when layer 3 and 4 filtering will be understood to many. For the time until some non-technical issues get resolve like international politics of who controls the trust roots, wide-scale deployment of IPsec will be impractical for both IPv4 and IPv6 (Sailan, et al., 2009). IPsec can have similar results on ability of administrator in order to force security policies with header information of IP, when it is implemented along with IPv4 and IPv6. Following are some explainable points that apply both on IPV4 as well as on IPv6. Current firewalling technology will be effective only in giving policies based on layer information, when IPsec is end to end encrypted because of the cryptographic protection. If IPv6 will only use the authentication header than it is trustable that IPv6-capable firewalls are able to inspect the upper layer protocols within the authentication header (Durdağı & Buldu, 2010).

5 Mitigation of threats by Ipv6 and IPSEC

After working several years on IPV4 in the mitigation of the threats to the existing networking protocols version, the defenders of the network can implement the security protocols in the network by leveraging capabilities array such as Unified threat management tools, security information, and event management tools, intrusion detection system as well as firewalls. By applying security protocols and using the security tools, the threats were still present in the world of IPv4 as well as requires appropriate security in-depth approach while some network defenders have DPI and other tools to mitigate such kind of threats. But the network security engineers, as well as risk mitigation teams, had replaced IPv4 with IPv6 which is the next generation internet protocol. There are several characteristics of IPv6 that will hold the potential communication system as well as assistance in the network administration. But two types of significant threats are still there that require the network administration network which is: security monitoring by using IPSec and Covert attack channels. CIO/CTO action can mitigate both of threats and vulnerabilities. The fact related to covert channels is very amazing that every device which is older just a few years, can capable to run IPv6. The IPv6 is very capable to reduce or mitigate the vulnerabilities and threats in the network system or person network because the IPv6 is very complex rathe than IPv4. As technology has become advance, every user should buy routers and devices with IPv6. Many attackers in the world have also many engineered tools that make them capable to make IPv6 on IPv4 by using the capabilities of IPv4. But the use of IPv6 protocols along with the implementation of IPsec protocols that can create an environment in the network to quarantine or can prevent the attacks by hackers and data breaches. 

6 References of Network security

AbouSalem, Z. Z. & Ashabrawy, M. A., 2018. Compared Between Ipv6 And With Ipv4,Differences And Similarities. International Journal Of Computers & Technolog, 17(02), pp. 7340-7348.

Cisco. com, 2018. IPv6 Addressing and Basic Connectivity Configuration Guide, Cisco IOS XE Everest 16.6.1, (Cisco ASR 900 Series). [Online] 

Available at: https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/routers/asr903/software/guide/ip/16-6-1/b-ip6b-xe-16-6-asr900/ip6-add-basic-conn-xe.html

Durdağı, E. & Buldu, A., 2010. IPV4/IPV6 security and threat comparisons. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 02(02), pp. 5285-5291.

Manjaiah, H. & Hanumanthappa, J., 2008. A Study on Comparison and Contrast between IPv4 and IPv6 Feature sets. In proceedings of ICCNS'08, 01(01), pp. 297-302.

Networkmonitoring. org, 2020. Network Security Threats. [Online] 

Available at: https://www.networkmonitoring.org/network-security-threats/

Oh H, C. K., Bang, H. & Na, J., 2006. Comparisons analysis of Security Vulnerabilities for Security Enforcement in IPv4/IPv6. Advanced Communication Technology ICACT 2006. The 8th International Conference, 30(2), pp. 01-10.

Proofpoint. com, 2020. Types of Network Threats. [Online] 

Available at: https://www.proofpoint.com/uk/threat-reference/network-delivered-threats

Sailan, M., Hassan, R. & Patel, A., 2009. A comparative review of IPv4 and IPv6 for research test bed. Conference Paper, 02(01), pp. 10-16.

Sharma, V., 2010. IPv6 and IPv4 Security challenge Analysis. Int. J. of Advanced of Networking and Applications, 01(04), pp. 258-269.