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Attacks Against the Architecture

  • Jari Arkko
  • IETF Chair
  • 27 Oct 2016

The scale, complexity, and potential harm of Denial-of-Service attacks involving the use of compromised or misconfigured nodes or “things” is increasing. Across multiple services and activities, the network seems to be unable to defend itself effectively against large-scale bad behavior. Why is this? Can something be done about it? Who should act?

In many cases the attacks are facilitated by very poor security practices on the devices, and improvements in that area are sorely needed. However, even with such improvement it seems important to improve the ability to defend the network against such attacks.

Enormous effort is being brought to bear on this issue, which has aspects ranging from the characteristics of specific internet protocols and services, through operations, public policy, and economics. But there are also some basic technical questions that are worth discussing: is the Internet architecture enabling compromised end nodes to wreak havoc on the network? Does it suggest anything about how to defend the network better? Is there a particular role for the IETF?

The topic of the technical plenary in the 97th IETF meeting will be “Attacks Against the Architecture”, a discussion about large-scale attacks, how they leverage the internet architecture, and possible ways to think about solutions.

Join us for the discussion in the IETF technical plenary on Wednesday, November 16, 16:40-19:10. The meeting will be held in Seoul, South Korea, but there are also remote participation tools available. To register for the meeting, click here.

Andrew Sullivan, IAB Chair
Suzanne Woolf, IAB Member
Jari Arkko, IETF Chair

Graphic: A flood that hit Germany and Denmark in 1634, source: wikipedia.