Flooding Attack on the Binding Cache in Mobile IPv6

Abstract

In the next generation Internet protocol (IPv6), mobility is supported by means of Mobile IPv6 (MIPv6). As a default part of the MIPv6 protocol, route optimization is used to route packets directly to a mobile node’s currently used address at the mobile node’s visited subnet. Return Routability is the protocol suggested by the IETF for managing this task. Route optimization is often carried out during handovers, where a mobile node changes network attachment from one subnet to another. To offer seamless handovers to the user it is important that route optimizations are carried out quickly. In this paper we will present an attack that was discovered during design of a new and more seamless protocol than the Return Routability. Our improved route optimization protocol for Mobile IPv6 suffers this attack; therefore we wanted to investigate if a similar attack was feasible on the Return Routability protocol. In this paper, we show that our new route optimization protocol offers no less security than the already standardized Return Routability protocol in this field.

This work was supported by UiS 95310, Rogaland University Fund.