Thanks Paul, Michael and Steve!

That clarifies my question.

Regards,
Ashok Kumar

On Tue, Dec 16, 2014 at 11:01 PM, <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>
> > On Dec 16, 2014, at 12:11 PM, Ashok Kumar <[email protected]> wrote:
> >
> >
> > Exactly. Michael has got my observation right.
> >
> > With ESN, the receiver will unnecessarily do MAC calculation for
> replayed packets
> > which falls before the replay window. The reason is, replayed packets
> whose sequence
> > number is lesser than the window start, will be considered as newer
> packet and anti-replay
> > check would be skipped for such packets (as per pseudo code given in the
> RFC).
>
> It’s trivial for an attacker to force the receiver to do MAC calculations;
> all that he needs to do is send packets with new sequence numbers.
>
> You’re right, if ESN is not in use, sequence numbers below the window are
> recognized as old, while with ESN they are assumed to be new (with the next
> higher value of the upper sequence number).  But either way, any replay
> will be rejected (possibly without requiring a MAC check, possibly with).
>
> This is why I say that the purpose of sequence numbers is to prevent
> replay, and that optimizing the IPSec receive processing is not a goal.
>
>         paul
>
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