LAN Switch Security What Hackers Know About Your Switches

by Vyncke, Eric; Paggen, Christopher

• ISBN13: 9781587052569
• ISBN10: 1587052563
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2007-09-06
• Publisher: Cisco Press

Summary

LAN Switch Security: What Hackers Know About Your Switches A practical guide to hardening Layer 2 devices and stopping campus network attacks Eric Vyncke Christopher Paggen, CCIEreg; No. 2659 Contrary to popular belief, Ethernet switches are not inherently secure. Security vulnerabilities in Ethernet switches are multiple: from the switch implementation, to control plane protocols (Spanning Tree Protocol [STP], Ciscoreg; Discovery Protocol [CDP], and so on) and data plane protocols, such as Address Routing Protocol (ARP) or Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP). LAN Switch Security explains all the vulnerabilities in a network infrastructure related to Ethernet switches. Further, this book shows you how to configure a switch to prevent or to mitigate attacks based on those vulnerabilities. This book also includes a section on how to use an Ethernet switch to increase the security of a network and prevent future attacks. Divided into four parts, LAN Switch Security provides you with steps you can take to ensure the integrity of both voice and data traffic traveling over Layer 2 devices. Part I covers vulnerabilities in Layer 2 protocols and how to configure switches to prevent attacks against those vulnerabilities. Part II addresses denial-of-service (DoS) attacks on an Ethernet switch and shows how those attacks can be mitigated. Part III shows how a switch can actually augment the security of a network through the utilization of wirespeed access control list (ACL) processing and IEEE 802.1x for user authentication and authorization. Part IV examines future developments from the LinkSec working group at the IEEE. For all parts, most of the content is vendor independent and is useful for all network architects deploying Ethernet switches. After reading this book, you will have an in-depth understanding of LAN security and be prepared to plug the security holes that exist in a great number of campus networks. Eric Vyncke has a masterrs"s degree in computer science engineering from the University of Liegrave;ge in Belgium. Since 1997, Eric has worked as a Distinguished Consulting Engineer for Cisco, where he is a technical consultant for security covering Europe. His area of expertise for 20 years has been mainly security from Layer 2 to applications. He is also guest professor at Belgian universities for security seminars. Christopher Paggen, CCIEreg; No. 2659, obtained a degree in computer science from IESSL in Liegrave;ge (Belgium) and a masterrs"s degree in economics from University of Mons-Hainaut (UMH) in Belgium. He has been with Cisco since 1996 where he has held various positions in the fields of LAN switching and security, either as pre-sales support, post-sales support, network design engineer, or technical advisor to various engineering teams. Christopher is a frequent speaker at events, such as Networkers, and has filed several U.S. patents in the security area. Contributing Authors: Jason Frazier is a technical leader in the Technology Systems Engineering group for Cisco. Steinthor Bjarnason is a consulting engineer for Cisco. Ken Hook is a switch security solution manager for Cisco. Rajesh Bhandari is a technical leader and a network security solutions architect for Cisco. Use port security to protect a

Author Biography

 

Eric Vyncke has a master’s degree in computer science engineering from the University of Liège in Belgium. He

worked as a research assistant in the same university before joining Network Research Belgium. At Network

Research Belgium, he was the head of R&D. He then joined Siemens as a project manager for security projects,

including a proxy firewall. Since 1997, he has worked as a distinguished consulting engineer for Cisco as a technical

consultant for security covering Europe. For 20 years, Eric’s area of expertise has been security from Layer 2 to

the application layer. He is also a guest professor at some Belgian universities for security seminars. Eric is also a

frequent speaker at security events (such as Networkers at Cisco Live and RSA Conference).

Christopher Paggen joined Cisco in 1996 where he has held various positions gravitating around LAN switching

and security technologies. Lately, he has been in charge of defining product requirements for the company’s current

and future high-end firewalls. Christopher holds several U.S. patents, one of which pertains to Dynamic ARP

Inspection (DAI). As CCIE No. 2659, Christopher also owns a B.S. in computer science from HEMES (Belgium)

and went on to study economics at UMH (Belgium) for two more years.

Table of Contents

Introduction	p. xix
Vulnerabilities and Mitigation Techniques	p. 3
Introduction to Security	p. 5
Security Triadv5
Confidentiality	p. 6
Integrity	p. 7
Availability	p. 8
Reverse Security Triad	p. 8
Risk Management	p. 8
Risk Analysis	p. 9
Risk Control	p. 10
Access Control and Identity Management	p. 10
Cryptography	p. 11
Symmetric Cryptosystems	p. 13
Symmetric Encryption	p. 13
Hashing Functions	p. 13
Hash Message Authentication Code	p. 14
Asymmetric Cryptosystems	p. 15
Confidentiality with Asymmetric Cryptosystems	p. 16
Integrity and Authentication with Asymmetric Cryptosystems	p. 17
Key Distribution and Certificates	p. 18
Attacks Against Cryptosystems	p. 19
Summary	p. 21
References	p. 21
Defeating a Learning Bridge??A???a????a??s Forwarding Process	p. 23
Back to Basics: Ethernet Switching	p. 101
23 Ethernet Frame Formats	p. 23
Learning Bridge	p. 24
Consequences of Excessive Flooding	p. 26
Exploiting the Bridging Table: MAC Flooding Attacks	p. 27
Forcing an Excessive Flooding Condition	p. 28
Introducing the macof Tool	p. 30
MAC Flooding Alternative: MAC Spoofing Attacks	p. 34
Not Just Theory	p. 35
Preventing MAC Flooding and Spoofing Attacksv36
Detecting MAC Activity	p. 36
Port Security	p. 37
Unknown Unicast Flooding Protection	p. 39
Summary	p. 40
References	p. 41
Attacking the Spanning Tree Protocol	p. 43
Introducing Spanning Tree Protocol	p. 43
Types of STP	p. 46
Understanding 802.1D and 802.1Q Common STP	p. 46
Understanding 802.1w Rapid STP	p. 46
Understanding 802.1s Multiple STP	p. 47
STP Operation: More Details	p. 47
Let the Games Begin!	p. 53
Attack 1: Taking Over the Root Bridge	p. 55
Root Guard	p. 58
BPDU-Guard	p. 58
Attack 2: DoS Using a Flood of Config BPDUs	p. 60
BPDU-Guard	p. 62
BPDU Filtering	p. 62
Layer 2 PDU Rate Limiter	p. 63
Attack 3: DoS Using a Flood of Config BPDUs	p. 63
Attack 4: Simulating a Dual-Homed Switch	p. 63
Summary	p. 64
References	p. 65
Are VLANS Safe?	p. 67
IEEE 802.1Q Overview	p. 67
Frame Classification	p. 68
Go Native	p. 69
Attack of the 802.1Q Tag Stack	p. 71
Understanding Cisco Dynamic Trunking Protocol	p. 76
Crafting a DTP Attack	p. 76
Countermeasures to DTP Attacks	p. 80
Understanding Cisco VTP 80 VTP Vulnerabilities	p. 81
Summary	p. 82
References	p. 82
Leveraging DHCP Weaknesses	p. 85
DHCP Overview	p. 85
Attacks Against DHCP	p. 89
DHCP Scope Exhaustion: DoS Attack Against DHCP	p. 89
Yensinia	p. 89
Gobbler	p. 90
Hijacking Traffic Using DHCP Rogue Servers	p. 92
Countermeasures to DHCP Exhaustion Attacks	p. 93
Port Security	p. 94
Introducing DHCP Snooping	p. 96
Rate-Limiting DHCP Messages per Port	p. 97
DHCP Message Validation	p. 97
DHCP Snooping with Option	p. 82
99 Tips for Deploying DHCP Snooping	p. 99
Tips for Switches That Do Not Support DHCP Snoopingv100
DHCP Snooping Against IP/MAC Spoofing Attacks	p. 100
Summary	p. 103
References	p. 103
Exploiting IPv4 ARP	p. 105
Back to ARP Basics	p. 105
Normal ARP Behavior	p. 105
Gratuitous ARP	p. 107
Risk Analysis for ARP	p. 108
ARP Spoofing Attack	p. 108
Elements of an ARP Spoofing Attack	p. 109
Mounting an ARP Spoofing Attack	p. 111
Mitigating an ARP Spoofing Attack	p. 112
Dynamic ARP Inspection	p. 112
DAI in Cisco IOS	p. 112
DAI in CatOS	p. 115
Protecting the Hosts	p. 115
Intrusion Detection	p. 116
Mitigating Other ARP Vulnerabilities	p. 117
Summary	p. 118
References	p. 118
Exploiting IPv6 Neighbor Discovery and Router Advertisement	p. 121
Introduction to IPv6	p. 121
Motivation for IPv6	p. 121
What Does IPv6 Change?	p. 122 Ne
Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.

Excerpts

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