Internet DRAFT - draft-williams-btns

draft-williams-btns






NETWORK WORKING GROUP                                        N. Williams
Internet-Draft                                                       Sun
Expires: February 2, 2006                                    August 2005


     Better-Than-Nothing-Security: An Unauthenticated Mode of IPsec
                       draft-williams-btns-00.txt

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Copyright Notice

   Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2005).

Abstract

   This document specifies how to use the Internet Key Exchange (IKE)
   protocols, such as IKEv1 and IKEv2, to setup "unauthenticated"
   security associations (SAs) for use with the IPsec Encapsulating
   Security Payload (ESP) and the IPsec Authentication Header (AH).  No
   IKE extensions are needed, but a Peer Authorization Database (PAD)
   extension in the form of an ID selector wildcard, 'UNKNOWN',
   specified.  Unauthenticated IPsec is herein referred to by its
   popular acronym, "BTNS" (Better Than Nothing Security).




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Table of Contents

   1.    Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  3
   1.1.  Conventions used in this document  . . . . . . . . . . . . .  3
   2.    BTNS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  4
   2.1.  Asymmetric and Symmetric BTNS SAs  . . . . . . . . . . . . .  5
   3.    Leap-of-Faith BTNS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  6
   4.    Security Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  7
   5.    Normative  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  7
         Author's Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  9
         Intellectual Property and Copyright Statements . . . . . . . 10








































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1.  Introduction

   A number of users and applications can benefit from the availability
   of "unauthenticated" IPsec or "better than nothing security" (BTNS),
   where unauthenticated key exchanges are subject to initial, but not
   subsequent MITM attacks, as described in [I-D.ietf-btns-prob-and-
   applic].

   Here we describe how to establish unauthenticated IPsec SAs using
   IKEv1 [RFC2408] [RFC2409] or IKEv2 [I-D.ietf-ipsec-ikev2] and
   unauthenticated public keys or certificates.  No new bits-on-the-wire
   are added to IKE or IKEv2, but a new wildcard for ID selectors in
   PAD/SPD entries is added: 'UNKNOWN.'

   The [I-D.ietf-ipsec-rfc2401bis] processing model is assumed,
   specifically the PAD as a concept separate from the SPD.

   This document does not define an opportunistic BTNS mode of IPsec
   whereby nodes may fallback on unprotected IP when their peers do not
   support IKE or IKEv2, but it does describe an optional leap-of-faith
   BTNS mode.

1.1.  Conventions used in this document

   The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
   "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this
   document are to be interpreted as described in [RFC2119].
























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2.  BTNS

   The IPsec processing model, IKE and IKEv2 are hereby modified as
   follows:

   o  An optional new ID type is added, 'PUBLICKEY', for use in PAD and
      SPD entries, so that ID selectors can match on public key values.
      This ID type is be used for the optional leap-of-faith BTNS mode
      (see below), but users could use it to manually create PAD/SPD
      entries in a manual equivalent of leap-of-faith BTNS.

   o  A new wildcard ID selector value for use in PAD and SPD entries is
      added, 'UNKNOWN', which matches any peer ID.

   o  For BTNS IKE and IKEv2 MUST coerce the IDs of peers whose CERT
      payloads could not be validated (in certain conditions, see below)
      to PUBLICKEY IDs whose values correspond to the public key used by
      the peer (if the peer used a certificate, then the certificate's
      subjectPublicKey) that can only be matched by either the 'UNKNOWN'
      ID selector wildcard value or a PUBLICKEY ID selector with that
      same key as its value; of course, HASH/AUTH payloads must be
      validated.

   Nodes wishing to be treated as BTNS nodes by their peers SHOULD use
   CERT payloads generated for the purpose (i.e., ephemeral, non-pre-
   shared self-signed certificates or bare RSA public keys).

   The conditions under which a BTNS-capable IKE/IKEv2 implementation
   MUST accept an IKE_SA that it would otherwise reject are such where
   the reasons for rejection relate only to the peer's CERT payload,
   namely:

   o  the peer's CERT was a bare RSA public key and not pre-shared to
      the other peer;

   o  the peer's CERT was a self-signed certificate not pre-shared to
      the other peer;

   o  the peer's CERT was a certificate for which no validation chain
      could be constructed and validated by the other peer to one of its
      trust anchors.

   Similar conditions relating to other CERT payload types are not
   described herein.

   In other words, BTNS-capable nodes coerce the IDs of peers whose AUTH
   payloads were valid but whose CERTs could not be validated (due to
   their being unknown bare public keys, self-signed certificates or



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   certificates from unknown PKIs) to IDs which can only be matched by
   the new 'UNKNOWN' PAD/SPD ID selector wildcard value or by ID
   selectors of the new 'PUBLICKEY' whose value matches the given key.

2.1.  Asymmetric and Symmetric BTNS SAs

   The key exchange protocols for IPsec are not modified by BTNS, only
   processing of peers that would otherwise be rejected by non-BTNS
   peers is modified.  The rest of the IPsec processing model is
   modified only to introduce a way to match unauthenticated peer IDs in
   the PAD/SPD.  Nodes therefore may not know that peers may accept them
   only for authorization as unauthenticated peers.  As a result there
   is no distinction between symmetric BTNS SAs (where both peers are
   unauthenticated) and asymmetric SAs (where only one of the peers is
   unauthenticated) beyond the each peer's willingness to authorize
   unauthenticated peers to specific resources.



































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3.  Leap-of-Faith BTNS

   Implementors may provide a PAD entry attribute used to indicate that
   the given PAD entry is a template that should, when matched, cause
   new PAD and SPD entries to be created binding the matching peer's IP
   address and BTNS ID (i.e., public key) by using the PUBLICKEY ID
   selector to match on the peer's public key.  Entries created this way
   have to be persistent, for some value of "persistent," though we
   RECOMMEND that "persistent" mean "until manually removed."










































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4.  Security Considerations

   Unauthenticated security association negotiation is subject to MITM
   attacks and should be used with care.  Where security infrastructures
   are lacking this may indeed be better than nothing.

   Use with applications that bind authentication at higher network
   layers to secure channels at lower layers may provide one secure way
   to use unauthenticated IPsec, but this is not specified herein and,
   furthermore, implies native mode IPsec, which this document mostly
   ignores.  For such applications a possible benefit of using
   unauthenticated IPsec may be the ability to use IPsec, with
   associated special purpose cryptographic hardware, for transport
   protection without having to deploy an authentication infrastructure
   suitable for use with IKE.  "Channel binding" is a technology
   currently being defined elsewhere at the IETF and, therefore, outside
   the scope of this document.

   Since channel binding is typically performed once per-session such
   applications need a way to construct "IPsec channels" using IPsec to
   protect common transport protocols layered above IP.  This means that
   channel binding applications require application programming
   interfaces (APIs) for binding datagrams of connection-less transports
   (e.g., UDP) and/or entire connections for connection-oriented
   transports (e.g., TCP) to a single set of of IPsec SAs, authenticated
   or otherwise, where each such SA re-keys a prior SA in the same set
   or is established using the same ID and, when unauthenticated IKE is
   used, using the same public key.  Such APIs are not specified herein;
   the work to specify such APIs is ongoing.

   Creation of PAD and SPD entries in a leap-of-faith manner creates a
   number of problems, most notably a denial-of-service (DoS) attack
   where an attacker can consume all address available for use in this
   way.  Such attacks need not even be conscious: device mobility can
   achieve the same effect.  A possible mitigation for this problem
   would be to allow leap-of-faith BTNS to be used only for address
   ranges where no mobile devices are expected and which attackers may
   not be able to take over for other reasons.  Another possible
   mitigation would be to prompt a user about each leap-of-faith BTNS
   policy entry instantiation.

   [...]

5.  Normative

   [I-D.ietf-btns-prob-and-applic]
              Touch, J., "Problem and Applicability Statement for Better
              Than Nothing Security  (BTNS)",



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              draft-ietf-btns-prob-and-applic-00 (work in progress),
              July 2005.

   [I-D.ietf-ipsec-ikev2]
              Kaufman, C., "Internet Key Exchange (IKEv2) Protocol",
              draft-ietf-ipsec-ikev2-17 (work in progress),
              October 2004.

   [I-D.ietf-ipsec-rfc2401bis]
              Kent, S. and K. Seo, "Security Architecture for the
              Internet Protocol", draft-ietf-ipsec-rfc2401bis-06 (work
              in progress), April 2005.

   [RFC2119]  Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
              Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.

   [RFC2408]  Maughan, D., Schneider, M., and M. Schertler, "Internet
              Security Association and Key Management Protocol
              (ISAKMP)", RFC 2408, November 1998.

   [RFC2409]  Harkins, D. and D. Carrel, "The Internet Key Exchange
              (IKE)", RFC 2409, November 1998.





























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Author's Address

   Nicolas Williams
   Sun Microsystems
   5300 Riata Trace Ct
   Austin, TX  78727
   US

   Email: Nicolas.Williams@sun.com










































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Acknowledgment

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   Internet Society.




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