Critical security issues for organisations in transition form IPv4 to IPv6

Abstract

In 1994, the Internet Engineering Task force embarked on the IP Next Generation (IPnG) project which ultimately aimed to draft a replacement for IP version 4, the protocol that facilitated the birth of the world wide web and numerous other services while sustaining for more than 30 years. In 1998, the first blue print of the IPnG was cleared and IP version 6 was designated as the rightful replacement. Despite the efforts to increase the longevity of the previous version, IPv6 has slowly but steadily made it's way to commercial networks, making the question "Is it safe to migrate and is the migration safe?" a timely one in today's context./ Contributing to the above thought, this research was conceded to establish some "Critical Security Issues for organizations in Transition from IPv4 to IPv6". The research herein aimed to surface numerous security issues and oversights, which a typical organization encounter while in the transition./ Firstly, a firewall's migration towards an IPv6 ready network was considered followed by a "web server" migration. These two platforms were selected, as a "firewall" would be one network device that shows the most sensitivity towards change in the IP protocol and related network topological changes and, a "web server" would be one of the first servers to be linked to the IPv6 network showing sensitivity towards the IPv6 changes made on the Operating system it resides, the client browsers, the IPv6 DNSs and the IPv6 network which it operate./ This thesis also has made a number of contributory findings & recommendations along the way especially with reference to variations of implementations in Dual Stacks and associated vulnerabilities of it./ Overall, the thesis aims to assist practitioners such as IT Security Consultants and Network Administrators, who do not necessarily have the time to go through a large body of literature on a crucial topic in todays' context.