Secure neighbor discovery (SeND): Attacks and challenges

In the field of Internet Protocol Version 4 (IPv4), the Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) is considered susceptible to spoofing attacks. The Neighbor Discovery Protocol (NDP), which is a part of the Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6), slightly resembles the IPv4 ARP, and is also susceptible to similar attacks in the absence of security mechanism. The Secure Neighbor Discovery (SeND) extension handles security risks to NDP by providing message protection, proof of address ownership and router authorization. SeND depends on X.509 certificates and active Cryptographically Generated Addresses (CGA). However, SeND can be difficult to deploy and can still be susceptible to some kinds of Denial of Service (DoS) attacks. This paper will present SeND components and some SeND responses to NDP threats. Furthermore, SeND's available implementations were given an overview. Discussions on SeND limitations, remaining vulnerabilities and current deployment challenges were also given. Moreover, the study implemented a test bed to assess the behavior of SeND when it is under DoS attack.