A security protocol for authentication of binding updates in Mobile IPv6.

Wireless communication technologies have come along way, improving with every generational leap. As communications evolve so do the system architectures, models and paradigms. Improvements have been seen in the jump from 2G to 3G networks in terms of security. Yet these issues persist and will continue to plague mobile communications into the leap towards 4G networks if not addressed. 4G will be based on the transmission of Internet packets only, using an architecture known as mobile IP. This will feature many advantages, however security is still a fundamental issue to be resolved. One particular security issue involves the route optimisation technique, which deals with binding updates. This allows the corresponding node to by-pass the home agent router to communicate directly with the mobile node. There are a variety of security vulnerabilities with binding updates, which include the interception of data packets, which would allow an attacker to eavesdrop on its contents, breaching the users confidentiality, or to modify transmitted packets for the attackers own malicious purposes. Other possible vulnerabilities with mobile IP include address spoofing, redirection and denial of service attacks. For many of these attacks, all the attacker needs to know is the IPv6 addresses of the mobile’s home agent and the corresponding node. There are a variety of security solutions to prevent these attacks from occurring. Two of the main solutions are cryptography and authentication. Cryptography allows the transmitted data to be scrambled in an undecipherable way resulting in any intercepted packets being illegible to the attacker. Only the party possessing the relevant key will be able to decrypt the message. Authentication is the process of verifying the identity of the user or device one is in communication with. Different authentication architectures exist however many of them rely on a central server to verify the users, resulting in a possible single point of attack. Decentralised authentication mechanisms would be more appropriate for the nature of mobile IP and several protocols are discussed. However they all posses’ flaws, whether they be overly resource intensive or give away vital address data, which can be used to mount an attack. As a result location privacy is investigated in a possible attempt at hiding this sensitive data. Finally, a security solution is proposed to address the security vulnerabilities found in binding updates and attempts to overcome the weaknesses of the examined security solutions. The security protocol proposed in this research involves three new security techniques. The first is a combined solution using Cryptographically Generated Addresses and Return Routability, which are already established solutions, and then introduces a new authentication procedure, to create the Distributed Authentication Protocol to aid with privacy, integrity and authentication. The second is an enhancement to Return Routability called Dual Identity Return Routability, which provides location verification authentication for multiple identities on the same device. The third security technique is called Mobile Home Agents, which provides device and user authentication while introducing location privacy and optimised communication routing. All three security techniques can be used together or individually and each needs to be passed before the binding update is accepted. Cryptographically Generated Addresses asserts the users ownership of the IPv6 address by generating the interface identifier by computing a cryptographic one-way hash function from the users’ public key and auxiliary parameters. The binding between the public key and the address can be verified by recomputing the hash value and by comparing the hash with the interface identifier. This method proves ownership of the address, however it does not prove the address is reachable. After establishing address ownership, Return Routability would then send two security tokens to the mobile node, one directly and one via the home agent. The mobile node would then combine them together to create an encryption key called the binding key allowing the binding update to be sent securely to the correspondent node. This technique provides a validation to the mobile nodes’ location and proves its ownership of the home agent. Return Routability provides a test to verify that the node is reachable. It does not verify that the IPv6 address is owned by the user. This method is combined with Cryptographically Generated Addresses to provide best of both worlds. The third aspect of the first security solution introduces a decentralised authentication mechanism. The correspondent requests the authentication data from both the mobile node and home agent. The mobile sends the data in plain text, which could be encrypted with the binding key and the home agent sends a hash of the data. The correspondent then converts the data so both are hashes and compares them. If they are the same, authentication is successful. This provides device and user authentication which when combined with Cryptographically Generated Addresses and Return Routability create a robust security solution called the Distributed Authentication Protocol. The second new technique was designed to provide an enhancement to a current security solution. Dual Identity Return Routability builds on the concept of Return Routability by providing two Mobile IPv6 addresses on a mobile device, giving the user two separate identities. After establishing address ownership with Cryptographically Generated Addresses, Dual Identity Return Routability would then send security data to both identities, each on a separate network and each having heir own home agents, and the mobile node would then combine them together to create the binding key allowing the binding update to be sent securely to the correspondent node. This technique provides protection against address spoofing as an attacker needs two separate ip addresses, which are linked together. Spoofing only a single address will not pass this security solution. One drawback of the security techniques described, however, is that none of them provide location privacy to hide the users IP address from attackers. An attacker cannot mount a direct attack if the user is invisible. The third new security solution designed is Mobile Home Agents. These are software agents, which provide location privacy to the mobile node by acting as a proxy between it and the network. The Mobile Home Agent resides on the point of attachment and migrates to a new point of attachment at the same time as the mobile node. This provides reduced latency communication and a secure environment for the mobile node. These solutions can be used separately or combined together to form a super security solution, which is demonstrated in this thesis and attempts to provide proof of address ownership, reachability, user and device authentication, location privacy and reduction in communication latency. All these security features are design to protect against one the most devastating attacks in Mobile IPv6, the false binding update, which can allow an attacker to impersonate and deny service to the mobile node by redirecting all data packets to itself. The solutions are all simulated with different scenarios and network configurations and with a variety of attacks, which attempt to send a false binding update to the correspondent node. The results were then collected and analysed to provide conclusive proof that the proposed solutions are effective and robust in protecting against the false binding updates creating a safe and secure network for all

Secure Mobile IP with HIP Style Handshaking and Readdressing

Mobile IP allows the mobile node roaming into a new IP network without losing its connection with its peer. Mobile IPv6 is using Mobile IP with Route Optimizationto improve performance by avoiding the triangle routing and adopting Return Routability as a secure process for binding update. Host Identity Protocol (HIP) is an experimental security protocol which provides mobility management and multi-homing by its new namespace. Its architecture is similar to that of Mobile IP with Route Optimization. In this paper, we have introduced a Secure Mobile IP with HIP Style Handshaking and Readdressing (SMIP), which has stronger security, better performance and lower binding cost in binding update process compared with Mobile IPv6. The dependence of home agent in the new scheme is also shown dramatically decreased. The initiated scheme integrated the primary features of two completely different mobility management solutions and has set up a migration path from mobile-IP based solution to a public-key based solution in mobile IP network

Moving Target Defense for Securing SCADA Communications

In this paper, we introduce a framework for building a secure and private peer to peer communication used in supervisory control and data acquisition networks with a novel Mobile IPv6-based moving target defense strategy. Our approach aids in combating remote cyber-attacks against peer hosts by thwarting any potential attacks at their reconnaissance stage. The IP address of each host is randomly changed at a certain interval creating a moving target to make it difficult for an attacker to find the host. At the same time, the peer host is updated through the use of the binding update procedure (standard Mobile IPv6 protocol). Compared with existing results that can incur significant packet-loss during address rotations, the proposed solution is loss-less. Improving privacy and anonymity for communicating hosts by removing permanent IP addresses from all packets is also one of the major contributions of this paper. Another contribution is preventing black hole attacks and bandwidth depletion DDoS attacks through the use of extra paths between the peer hosts. Recovering the communication after rebooting a host is also a new contribution of this paper. Lab-based simulation results are presented to demonstrate the performance of the method in action, including its overheads. The testbed experiments show zero packet-loss rate during handoff delay

New Mobility Trends in Data Networks

Dizertační práce se zabývá návrhem nového algoritmu řízení handoveru v rámci protokolu Mobile IPv6, který umožní nasazení tohoto protokolu v leteckých datových sítích. Existující algoritmy řízení handoveru sice dosahují dostatečné výkonnosti v konvenčních pozemních bezdrátových sítích disponujích velkou šířkou pásma a nízkou latencí, jako jsou WiFi nebo UMTS, ale jak ukazuje tato práce, nasazení těchto algoritmů prostředí leteckých datových sítí nepřináší očekávané výhody. Analýza ukazuje, že v úzkopásmových leteckých sítích trpí tyto algoritmy řízení handoveru velkou latencí a způsobují značnou režii. Nový algoritmus řízení handoveru v MIPv6 navržený v této práci je založený na jednoduché myšlence: ''Já jsem letadlo, já vím, kam letím!'' To znamená, že pohyb letadla není náhodný, ale vysoce předvídatelný. Díky tomu je možno předvídat handovery mezi přístupovými sítěmi podél očekávané trajektorie letadla a vykonat nezbytné operace pro přípravu handoverů již na zemi, kde je letadlo připojeno k širokopásmové síti letiště. Tato dizertační práce dále uvádí porovnání existujících algoritmů řízení handoveru s nově navrženým pomocí analytické metody ohodnocení handoveru. Díky tomu je možno kvantifikovat výhody, které nový algoritmus přináší a taktéž popsat slabiny algoritmů existujících.The doctoral thesis is focused on a design of novel Mobile IPv6 handover strategy suitable for deployment in aeronautical data networks. The current handover strategies provide sufficient performance in the conventional ground networks such as WiFi or UMTS that dispose high bandwidth and low latency. However, as this thesis shows, deploying these handover strategies in aeronautical data link environment does not bring desired benefits - the handover latency is high and the related overhead gets high as well. The novel MIPv6 handover strategy presented in this thesis is based on a simple thought: ''I am an aircraft, I know where I'm flying!'' This means that the movement of the aircraft is not random, it is highly predictable. Thanks to that, inter-network handovers may be anticipated and necessary IP handover related actions can be taken in advance, while the aircraft is connected via a broadband ground link at the origination airport. The thesis also presents a comparison of the existing handover strategies with the proposed new one conducted using an analytical approach. This allows to quantify the benefits of the novel handover strategy and the drawbacks of the current ones.

Enhancing Capacity and Network Performance of Client-Server Architectures Using Mobile IPv6 Host-Based Network Protocol

A huge number of studies have been done supporting seamless mobility networks and mobile technologies over the years. The recent innovations in technology have unveiled another revolution from the static architectural approach to more dynamic and even mobile approaches for client-server networks. Due to the special equipments and infrastructure needed to support network mobility management, it is difficult to deploy such networks beyond the local network coverage without interruption of communications. Therefore, MIPv6 as developed by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and ancillary technologies were reviewed to provide clear insights on implementing MIPv6 in Client-Server architectures. However, MIPv6 technology presents weaknesses related to its critical handover latency which appears long for real-time applications such as Video Stream with potential loss of data packets during transmission

Enhancing Capacity and Network Performance of Client-Server Architectures Using Mobile IPv6 Host-Based Network Protocol

A huge number of studies have been done supporting seamless mobility networks and mobile technologies over the years The recent innovations in technology have unveiled another revolution from the static architectural approach to more dynamic and even mobile approaches for client-server networks Due to the special equipments and infrastructure needed to support network mobility management it is difficult to deploy such networks beyond the local network coverage without interruption of communications Therefore MIPv6 as developed by the Internet Engineering Task Force IETF and ancillary technologies were reviewed to provide clear insights on implementing MIPv6 in Client-Server architectures However MIPv6 technology presents weaknesses related to its critical handover latency which appears long for real-time applications such as Video Stream with potential loss of data packets during transmissio

AN ENHANCED BINDING UPDATE SCHEME FOR NEXT GENERATION INTERNET PROTOCOL MOBILITY

In recent years, the usage of mobile devices has become essential for people, both for business and for their daily activities. The mobile devices can get services directly from their home network and from other correspondent devices regardless of their position without using any intermediate agent. It is achieved by using mobility based Internet Protocol version 6, called as next generation internet protocol mobility. Since network mobility uses open air interface as a communication medium, it is possible for many security threats and attacks that might attempt to get unauthorized access from the participating entities. Consequently, the protection of network mobility from threats is one of the most demanding tasks as it must be considered without increasing the complexity while enhancing security. Hence, the paper proposes an enhanced location update scheme by incorporating the optimal asymmetric encryption method based on the random oracle model for providing security and efficiency. It emphasizes the security goals such as authentication, integrity, and confidentiality from the security analysis. In addition, it addresses the attack prevention analysis for the attacks such as rerun, man-in-the-middle and false location update. The proposed scheme is simulated and verified for security properties using a security validation tool - Automated Validation of Internet Security Protocols and Applications. Finally, the simulation studies show that the latency of the proposed scheme is reduced significantly when compared the other location update schemes

Secure Mobile IPv6 for Mobile Networks based on the 3GPP IP Multimedia Subsystem

The rapid spread of new radio access technologies and the consequent service opportunities have stimulated thetechnical and scientific community to investigate future evolution scenarios for 3rd Generation networks (3G), generically referred to as Beyond-3G or 4G. They are going to be characterized by ever stronger requirements for security, as well as the capability for the final users to experience continuous connectivity and uninterrupted services of IP applications as they move about from one access network to another. Key issues are: i) securityprovision for applications exchanging data in diverse wireless networks; ii) seamless mobility (handoff) between different coverage domains and, in case, access technologies. Since many proposals are based on the use of the Mobile IPv6 protocol, in this paper we analyze the security threats emerging from some Mobile IPv6 mechanisms for mobility management, and we propose a solution against such threats, under the assumption that both end users (mobile or not) are attached to a Mobile IPv6-enabled 3GPP IP Multimedia Subsystem network