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[20090215]
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Security Assessment of the Transmission Control Protocol
Fernando Gont posted about a study that's
not strictly related to NetBSD, but still on-topic in today's
networked world: ``The United Kingdom's Centre for the Protection of National
Infrastructure has just released the document "Security Assessment of
the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP)", on which I have had the
pleasure to work during the last few years.''
Fernando outlines the motivation to produce the study by citing the
Preface of the study:
``The TCP/IP protocol suite was conceived in an environment that was quite
different from the hostile environment they currently operate in.
However, the effectiveness of the protocols led to their early adoption
in production environments, to the point that to some extent, the
current world's economy depends on them. ''
The Preface goes on to outline the history between TCP/IP
with its early days and purpose then, and the change in
area of application (and threat!) today. It also outlines
the relation between the IETF's standard process and
work from the computer / network security area, and understands
itself as an assistance for vendors to improve their
implementation.
Topics covered in the study include the Transmission Control Protocol,
its header fields and common options, mechanisms for
connection establishment and termination, implementation
details like buffer management and segment reassembly,
the TCP API, and resulting problems like blind in-window
attacks, information leaking and covert channels.
Last, port scanning and interactions with the ICMP and
IP protocols is discussed.
For more information see
Fernando's posting to tech-net
or have a look at
the 130 page study
yourself. Send your patches & discussions
to
tech-net. :-)
[Tags: Security, tcp]
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