IPv6 Flaw Could Amplify DDoS Attacks

This week, experts sent two drafts to the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) proposing different ways of fixing a problem in the way that Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) allows the source of network data to determine its path through the network. The drafts recommend that the IPv6 feature should either be eliminated or, at the very least, disabled by default. more»

Transition of Government Networks to IPv6 Gains Traction

The transition of government networks to the next-generation Internet Protocol has gained traction over the last year, according to a recent survey of government and industry officials.

Almost half of the respondents from civilian agencies and nearly two-thirds of those in the Defense Department said that IPv6 is important in supporting their IT goals. Money for the transition is slowly moving into the funding pipeline. Federal spending on IPv6-enabled products and services is expected to hit $27 billion this year, climbing to $60 billion by 2011. more»

Data Can Bypass Most Network Security via IPv6

An independent security researcher showed off an early version of a tool for creating covert channels that, he claims, can pass undetected through most firewalls and intrusion detection systems.

Joe Klein, network security expert, North American IPv6 Task Force The tool, dubbed VoodooNet or v00d00n3t, uses the ability of most computers to encapsulate next-generation network traffic, known as Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6), inside of today's network communications standard, or IPv4. more»

IPv6, Google and Its Dark Fiber Mystery

The market is still guessing about Google's continued purchases of "dark fiber" and what that will mean to the Internet. Yet another explanation was floated at a recent IT conference: IPv6, the next-generation Internet standard.

During a debate on the adoption of Internet Protocol Version 6 at the Burton Group's annual Catalyst conference in San Francisco, Alex Lightman, CEO of IP telephony vendor Innofone.com, offered a new reason for Google's expenditures on dark fiber. His observation came during a dialogue on Internet addressing and the lack of support by service providers for IPv6. He is worried that the United States is focused on the present and is not addressing future needs. more»

Mitigating Spoofed Attacks Using IPv6 Address Space

Timothy D. Morgan's recent paper titled, "IPv6 Address Cookies", seeks to apply the fundamental shift in resource availability brought about by the vastly increased Internet address space in IPv6 to develop a novel, lower cost solution to mitigating spoofed attacks. "Spoofed denial of service attacks have plagued the Internet for a number of years, and show no signs of abating. Research into mitigation techniques has apparently not led to a financially viable solution, and new attacks have been discovered in the wild without being widely anticipated". The following provides an introduction to this paper. more»

Security Experts Warn VoIP Attacks May Be Just Around the Corner

It's become a familiar pattern in online security. A groundbreaking way to communicate emerges, spreads like wildfire, and then hackers find a way to use it to their advantage. Security companies react--but not before the problem has succeeded in wreaking havoc. It happened with e-mail and is happening now with instant messaging and mobile devices.

The next area that could be targeted: Voice over Internet Protocol, or VoIP, which lets people make low-priced phone calls using the same technology that delivers e-mail. And the results could be just as damaging, if not worse, than with other technologies, some security experts warn.  more»

Security Professionals at Major Financial Institutions Shunning VoIP

Internet telephony is still not mature enough a platform to support business communications, according to senior security professionals.

In a debate at the Infosecurity conference in London last Wednesday, an audience of security and IT pros voted that Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) wasn't able to support mission critical communications at the moment. Banking security professionals argued that the expense of implementing current VoIP solutions coupled with the risk of security holes and network downtime did not make IP telephony an attractive business proposition. more»

ENUM: Mapping the E.164 Number Space into the DNS

Many communications networks are constructed for a single form of communication, and are ill suited to being used for any other form. Although the Internet is also a specialized network in terms of supporting digital communications, its relatively unique flexibility lies in its ability to digitally encode a very diverse set of communications formats, and then support their interaction over the Internet. In this way many communications networks can be mapped into an Internet application and in so doing become just another distributed application overlayed on the Internet. From this admittedly Internet-centric perspective, voice is just another Internet application. And for the growing population of Voice over IP (VoIP) users, this is indeed the case... more»

Communications Policy for 2006 and Beyond: VoIP as a Case in Point

In this article, published in the Federal Communications Law Journal (FCLJ), the authors (Reed E. Hundt and Gregory L. Rosston) have proposed sweeping changes to the current telecommunications regulatory regime. With impending reform in telecommunications laws, the authors argue that an important first step is the creation of a bipartisan, independent commission to examine and recommend implementation of more market-oriented communications policy. The following excerpt from the article looks into service competition with respect to VoIP... more»

Microsoft Leverages IPv6 With Vista

Internet protocol version 6 (IPv6) promises to deliver connectivity features in Windows Vista not possible with today's Internet protocol version 4 (IPv4).

Sinead O'Donovan, product unit manger for networking at Microsoft, said "When we looked at key applications such as MSN Messenger, we learned that developers needed to do too many tricks to get them to work over NAT." more»

IETF is 20 Today

From a notorious striptease by Internet pioneer Vint Cerf to a fist-pumping, table-jumping brawl about cryptography policy, the Internet's premier standards-setting body has had its share of big moments. This week, the IETF celebrates another one when it turns 20. The IETF is an egalitarian, all-volunteer group consisting of network engineers from Cisco, IBM, Microsoft, AT&T and other leading vendors. It has created many of the underlying standards that make the Internet work, including fundamental routing, e-mail, directory services and telephony protocols. more»

Telecom Regulatory Authority of India Recommends IPv6 Transition

Faced with increasing demand for Internet protocol addresses, better quality of service and security, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) today recommended a transition from the existing version of internet protocol (IPv4) to the next-generation IPv6 platform.

The regulator has proposed the setting up of a National Internet Registry (NIR) in the country, within the framework of the Asia Pacific Network Information Centre (APNIC), and the Regional Internet Registry, utilizing the existing set-up of National Internet Exchange of India (NIXI). Currently all users in India buy their Internet protocol addresses from the APNIC. more»

An Analysis of Microsoft's MARID Patent Applications

The IETF MARID working group has been slogging away all summer trying to produce a draft standard about e-mail sender verification. They started with Meng Wong's SPF and Microsoft's Caller ID for E-mail, which got stirred together into a hybrid called Sender ID. One of the issues hanging over the MARID process has been Microsoft's Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) in Caller ID and Sender ID. The IETF has a process described in RFC 3668 that requires contributors to disclose IPR claims related to their contributions. more»