Chapter 11. Assessing IP VPN Services
This chapter tackles assessment of services found running on network boundaries that provide secure remote access over IP. Increasingly, VPN services provide access for both home users and branch offices, using IPsec, proprietary Check Point FWZ, or Microsoft PPTP. These services are under threat primarily from offline preshared key-grinding and information-leak attack, which are described in the following sections.
IPsec VPNs
VPN technologies and their underlying protocols and key exchange mechanisms fill entire books already. One excellent book I used to research and present IPsec key exchange and authentication protocols is IPSec: Securing VPNs, by Carlton R. Davis (McGraw-Hill). If you require detailed low-level information about IPsec and its various modes and protocols, you should definitely read a book dedicated to the subject. Here I tackle the key protocols and mechanisms at a high level, and discuss known remotely exploitable weaknesses and attacks.
Standard Internet (IP) packets are inherently insecure. IPsec was developed to provide security options and enhancements to IP and to negate the following security weaknesses:
IP spoofing and packet-source forgery issues
Modification of data within IP packets
Replay attacks
Sniffing attacks
IPsec VPNs use the Internet Security Association and Key Management Protocol (ISAKMP) service to provide authentication and key exchange when establishing and maintaining an IPsec connection. After authenticating, ...
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