Hi Tom and all,

Network management protocol is usually attackers' target. Once attacked, the 
service will be tampered and result in significant security issue. As SNMP is 
the widely used management protocol for network device and a large proportion 
of network devices support SNMP, the security of SNMP is especially important. 
As a result we (IETF) should pay more attention to SNMP security issues.

The security expert as Stuart McClure have mentioned SNMP in his famous book as 
"HACKING EXPOSED 7: NETWORK SECURITY SECRETS & SOLUTIONS", McGraw-Hill 
Education, 2012, pp 348: Conceived as a network management and monitoring 
service, the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) is designed to provide 
intimate information about network devices, software, and systems. As such, it 
is a frequent target of attackers. In addition, its general lack of strong 
security protections has garnered it the colloquial name “Security Not My 
Problem.”

The current Key Localization Algorithm have obvious vulnerability. We never see 
such cryptographic algorithm defect in other widely used protocol. Hacker 
communities have mentioned the current key localization method as a loophole, 
and plan to exploit the vulnerability or publish it to CVE.

To add an extra password processing module for SNMPV3, it need add more 
restricted condition than the regular way. We have discussed it with design 
teams, nobody accept this design proposal, for it will induce more 
interoperability problems for other password based module. Besides, this is a 
collision problem in key localization in SNMP, it is not suitable to demand the 
developer to change the general module to fix this special problem in SNMP.

In consideration of other architectural vulnerability, this vulnerability can 
be easily fixed by little revision as proposed by this draft . Any comments?


Regards,
Fang Liang



-----邮件原件-----
发件人: t.petch [mailto:[email protected]] 
发送时间: 2014年12月1日 18:31
收件人: Zhangdacheng (Dacheng); Hedanping (Ana); [email protected]
抄送: [email protected]
主题: Re: [OPSAWG] New Version Notification for 
draft-du-opsawg-snmp-key-localization-00.txt

----- Original Message -----
From: "Zhangdacheng (Dacheng)" <[email protected]>
To: "Hedanping (Ana)" <[email protected]>; <[email protected]>
Cc: <[email protected]>
Sent: Saturday, November 29, 2014 3:59 AM

> Let me help clarify Danping's point.
>
> We found there was a problem in the localization algorithm, but we are
not sure whether this issue is worthwhile for us to address, or the effort of 
addressing this issue is out of scope of the SNMP specification. So, we raise 
this question here, and hope to get comments or suggestions.

The new algorithm that you propose seems to offer very little improvement.  You 
suggest that after replicating the password, you then add the password length 
in the last four octets to bring the length up to 64 octet.  This seems to add 
very little entropy.

Also, an 8 character string, containing upper case, lower case, digit and 
extended punctuation would have been regarded as too weak many years ago and we 
should not be documenting such an approach now.

Again, anyone who uses a password based system and does not have a extra module 
to ensure that passwords meet current standards deserves all the security 
breaches they get!

Tom Petch

>
> Cheers
>
> Dacheng
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: OPSAWG [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Hedanping
> > (Ana)
> > Sent: Saturday, November 29, 2014 10:52 AM
> > To: [email protected]
> > Cc: [email protected]
> > Subject: [OPSAWG] FW: New Version Notification for 
> > draft-du-opsawg-snmp-key-localization-00.txt
> >
> > Dear all,
> > We find a security problem in the current SNMP key localization
algorithm, but
> > we are not sure whether IETF is the right place to improve it. The
draft is
> > submitted and comments are appreciated.
> >
> > A new version of I-D, draft-du-opsawg-snmp-key-localization-00.txt
> > has been successfully submitted by Danping He and posted to the IETF 
> > repository.
> >
> > Name: draft-du-opsawg-snmp-key-localization
> > Revision: 00
> > Title: A New Algorithm for SNMP Key Localization Document date: 
> > 2014-11-28
> > Group: Individual Submission
> > Pages: 4
> > URL:
> >
http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-du-opsawg-snmp-key-localizatio
n-00.
> > txt
> > Status:
> >
https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-du-opsawg-snmp-key-localization/
> > Htmlized:
> > http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-du-opsawg-snmp-key-localization-00
> >
> >
> > Abstract:
> >    This draft discusses a security issue with the algorithm for
> >    generating SNMP localized keys and introduce a new algorithm to
> >    address this problem.
> >
> >
> > Regards,
> > Ana (Danping)

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