V-66113

Discussion

A rogue router could send a fictitious routing update to convince a site's perimeter router to send traffic to an incorrect or even a rogue destination. This diverted traffic could be analyzed to learn confidential information about the site's network, or merely used to disrupt the network's ability to communicate with other networks. This is known as a "traffic attraction attack" and is prevented by configuring neighbor router authentication for routing updates. However, using clear-text authentication provides little benefit since an attacker can intercept traffic and view the authentication key. This would allow the attacker to use the authentication key in an attack. Since MD5 is vulnerable to "birthday" attacks and may be compromised, routing protocol authentication must use FIPS 140-2 validated algorithms and modules to encrypt the authentication key. This requirement applies to all IPv4 and IPv6 protocols that are used to exchange routing or packet forwarding information; this includes all Interior Gateway Protocols (such as OSPF, EIGRP, and IS-IS) and Exterior Gateway Protocols (such as BGP), MPLS-related protocols (such as LDP), and Multicast-related protocols.

Check Content

Verify the HP FlexFabric Switch configuration to ensure that it is using a NIST validated FIPS 140-2 cryptography encryption mechanism by implementing OSPFv3 with IPsec.

[HP] display current-configuration interface

interface GigabitEthernet0/0
 port link-mode route
 description R1 ACTIVE
 combo enable copper
 ospfv3 200 area 0.0.0.0
 ospfv3 ipsec-profile jitc
 ipv6 address 2115:B:1::3E/126

If the routing protocol authentication mechanism is not a validated FIPS 140-2 cryptography, this is a finding.

Note: OSPFv3 requires IPsec to enable authentication using either the IPv6 Authentication Header (AH) or the Encapsulating Security Payload (ESP) header.