Subject: [OPSEC] Last Call: <draft-ietf-opsec-ipv6-host-scanning-07.txt> (Network Reconnaissance in IPv6 Networks) to Informational RFC

From: The IESG <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2015 10:11:21 -0700

The IESG has received a request from the Operational Security
Capabilities for IP Network Infrastructure WG (opsec) to consider the
following document:
- 'Network Reconnaissance in IPv6 Networks'
  <draft-ietf-opsec-ipv6-host-scanning-07.txt> as Informational RFC

The IESG plans to make a decision in the next few weeks, and solicits
final comments on this action. Please send substantive comments to the
[email-masked] mailing lists by 2015-07-08. Exceptionally, comments may be
sent to [email-masked] instead. In either case, please retain the
beginning of the Subject line to allow automated sorting.

Abstract

   IPv6 offers a much larger address space than that of its IPv4
   counterpart.  An IPv6 subnet of size /64 can (in theory) accommodate
   approximately 1.844 * 10^19 hosts, thus resulting in a much lower
   host density (#hosts/#addresses) than is typical in IPv4 networks,
   where a site typically has 65,000 or less unique addresses.  As a
   result, it is widely assumed that it would take a tremendous effort
   to perform address scanning attacks against IPv6 networks, and
   therefore brute-force IPv6 address scanning attacks have been
   considered unfeasible.  This document updates RFC 5157, which first
   discussed this assumption, by providing further analysis on how
   traditional address scanning techniques apply to IPv6 networks, and
   exploring some additional techniques that can be employed for IPv6
   network reconnaissance.  In doing so, this document formally
   obsoletes RFC 5157.

The file can be obtained via
https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-opsec-ipv6-host-scanning/

IESG discussion can be tracked via
https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-opsec-ipv6-host-scanning/ballot/

No IPR declarations have been submitted directly on this I-D.