IPv6 uptake (was: The Reg does 240/4)

Mon Feb 19 14:02:45 UTC 2024

Bottom-posted with old school formatting by hand.

-----Original Message-----
From: NANOG <nanog-bounces+leehoward=hilcostreambank.com at nanog.org> On Behalf Of William Herrin
Sent: Friday, February 16, 2024 8:05 PM
To: Michael Thomas <mike at mtcc.com>
Cc: nanog at nanog.org
Subject: Re: IPv6 uptake (was: The Reg does 240/4)

> On the firewall, I program it to do NAT translation from
> 192.168.55.0/24 to 199.33.225.1 when sending packets outbound, which also has the effect of disallowing 
> inbound packets to 192.168.55.0/24 which are not part of an established connection.
> 
> Someone tries to telnet to 192.168.55.4. What happens? The packet never even reaches my firewall because 
> that IP address doesn't go anywhere on the Internet.

Most NATs I've seen in the last 10-15 years are "full cone" NATs: they are configured so that once there is an 
outbound flow, and inbound datagram to that address+port will be forwarded to the inside address, regardless
of source.

Most devices now have a more or less constant flow of heartbeats or updates to somewhere on the Internet.
In practice, NAPT just increases the size of the space to scan: just dump your crafted packets to every address
+ every port at your target.

If that increased scanning target is your security, you're better off with the increased target of IPv6.

IT administrators don't usually know what kind of NAT they have deployed.

FWIW, the other enterprise IT security hole I often see: if your VPN is IPv6-unaware, but your users have IPv6
at home (like most in the U.S.), your VPN is now split-tunnel, regardless of policy. You may think all your
packets are going through the VPN to be inspected by the corporate firewall, but any web site with IPv6
(about half) will use the local residential route, not the VPN.

Lee