The security implications of IPv6

Abstract

With the explosion in the number of mobile devices, the pool of IPv4 addresses is quickly being exhausted. Europe officially ran out of IPv4 addresses in late 2012 – yet today IPv4 still carries the majority of Internet traffic.1 And while organisations are now beginning to migrate to IPv6 in earnest, switching from IPv4 poses a series of security challenges. The pool of IPv4 addresses is quickly being exhausted. Yet today IPv4 still carries the majority of Internet traffic. And while organisations are now beginning to migrate to IPv6, switching poses a series of security challenges. There are several important issues that IT administrators must be aware of during a changeover, including: IPv6 ICMP vulnerabilities; multiple protocol stack vulnerabilities; the lack of experience in countermeasures for IPv6 attacks; hacking tools that now support IPv6; IPv6 multicast vulnerabilities; IPv6 header information vulnerabilities; and tunnelling IPv6 through IPv4 networks. Keith Barker explains these issues in detail.