RE: Security Use Requirements

["John Hufferd" <hufferd@us.ibm.com>]

Bernard,
I think that Julian addressed this, but, an installation might want only
the connection to the local environment, and if so administratively tell
the iSCSI ends to not do the encryption etc.  Especially if some of the
ends are Laptops and Desktops.  But all side must implement the features.

By the way you might have slightly overstated the IPSec chips going at full
gig speed, when you talk about triple Des.  And if there are some they are
not within the normal costs one would expect for a iSCSI NIC HBA.

.
.
.
John L. Hufferd
Senior Technical Staff Member (STSM)
IBM/SSG San Jose Ca
(408) 256-0403, Tie: 276-0403,  eFax: (408) 904-4688
Internet address: hufferd@us.ibm.com


"Bernard Aboba" <aboba@internaut.com>@ece.cmu.edu on 02/05/2001 03:26:13 PM

Sent by:  owner-ips@ece.cmu.edu


To:   <Black_David@emc.com>, <ips@ece.cmu.edu>
cc:   "RJ Atkinson" <rja@inet.org>, "Smb@Research. Att. Com"
      <smb@research.att.com>
Subject:  RE: Security Use Requirements



It is hard for me to see how you could
get away with no security services at all
(e.g. no per-packet authentication and integrity
protection for iSCSI PDUs).

After all, we're talking about facilities
that are used by the world's major financial
institutions. If this data isn't worth protecting,
I don't know what is. Do you really want
attackers to be able to manipulate the contents
of bank accounts at will over the Internet?

Furthermore, there really isn't a sound technical
argument for dispensing with security. There are
chipsets available that can provide IPSEC
integrity and authentication services at
speeds of 1 Gbps or higher.



-----Original Message-----
From: owner-ips@ece.cmu.edu [mailto:owner-ips@ece.cmu.edu]On Behalf Of
Black_David@emc.com
Sent: Monday, February 05, 2001 12:54 PM
To: ips@ece.cmu.edu
Subject: Security Use Requirements


In Orlando, I picked up an action item to determine what
the requirements are for *use* of security features,
as opposed to requirements for *implementation*.  I
believe the answer to be that it is acceptable to
specify security measures weaker than those one would
want to use in full generality on a public network,
where "weaker" includes no security.

There are two important caveats that apply:
- Security of the negotiation mechanism becomes
     very important when this is done, as there's
     an obvious man-in-the-middle attack on the
     negotiation mechanism to get the endpoints
     to negotiate weaker security than they intended.
- The weaker security mechanisms need to be documented
     in terms of their security properties (and lack
     thereof), as well as environments in which they
     are appropriate.  The "Security Considerations"
     section of RFC 2338 (VRRP) has been recommended
     as a good example of this.

--David
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