University of Massachusetts at Amherst 1 Flooding Attacks by Exploiting Persistent Forwarding Loops Jianhong Xia, Lixin Gao and Teng Fei University of Massachusetts, Amherst MA 01003, USA {jxia, lgao,

University of Massachusetts at Amherst 2Introduction Routing determines forwarding paths A B X C Y

University of Massachusetts at Amherst 3 Forwarding Loops Forwarding loops exist in the Internet –Transient or persistent [Paxson97], [Hengartner02], [Francois05], [Zhang04] –Misconfigurations may cause forwarding loops [Griffin02] Security issues –Blackhole some network addresses –Can be exploited to launch flooding attacks

University of Massachusetts at Amherst 4 Flooding Attacks Using Persistent Forwarding Loops How many shadowed addresses in the Internet? X Y RaRa Shadowed Addresses Imperiled Addresses RbRb RcRc Affect legitimate end hosts Traffic to Y Traffic to X How many imperiled addresses in the Internet?

University of Massachusetts at Amherst 5 Measurement Design Design –Balancing granularity and overhead –Samples 2 addresses in each /24 IP block Addresses space collection –Addresses covered by RouteView table –De-aggregate prefixes to /24 prefixes Fine-grained prefixes Data traces –Traceroute to 5.5 million fine-grained prefixes –Measurement lasts for 3 weeks

University of Massachusetts at Amherst 6 Shadowed vs. Imperiled Addresses Shadowed addresses/prefixes –135,973 shadowed prefixes –2.47% of routable addresses –Located in 5120 ASes Imperiled addresses/prefixes –42,887 imperiled prefixes –0.78% of routable addresses –Located in 2051 ASes

University of Massachusetts at Amherst 7 Properties of Persistent Forwarding Loops Length –86.6% of persistent loops are two hops long Location –81.8% of persistent loops occur within destination domains Implications –Significantly amplify attacking traffic –Can be exploited from different places

University of Massachusetts at Amherst 8Validation Validation from various locations –From Asia, Europe, West and East coast of US –90% of shadowed prefixes consistently have persistent forwarding loops Validation to multiple addresses in shadowed prefixes –Sampling ~50 addresses in each shadowed prefix –68% of shadowed prefixes show that All samples have forwarding loops

University of Massachusetts at Amherst 9 Impact on Bandwidth Consumption Example on overloading link L bc –Available bandwidth: 100Mbps –Number of compromised hosts: 25 –Average traffic rate needed: X Y RaRa RbRb RcRc Traffic to Y Traffic to X

University of Massachusetts at Amherst 10Conclusion Persistent forwarding loops –Large number of shadowed prefixes –Distributed in a large number of domains Affect legitimate end hosts –Large number of imperiled prefixes –Spread in various domains Can be exploited to launch flooding attacks –Amplifying attacking traffic significantly –Can be launched from various locations

University of Massachusetts at Amherst 11Thanks Any questions or comments?

University of Massachusetts at Amherst 12 Possible Causes of Forwarding Loops Configure errors Example: Pull-up routes –Provider owns /8 Assign /16 to its customer –Customer uses /24 Accept packets to /24 only Others are redirected back to provider by default route –Forwarding loop happens Any packet to addresses in ~ Provider Customer Internet Default route / / /24