Federal Government Mandates Transition to IPv6
Vivek Kundra
With the new, available IPv4 addresses set to run out in the forthcoming weeks, federal agencies are working hard to meet the deadlines set by U.S. Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra.
At the same time, agencies are grappling with how to protect networks and information from existing and future IPv6 cyber threats.
“There is a new sense of urgency by our clients as we help agencies accelerate their IPv6 planning, design, and implementation,” said Command Information EVP for Cyber Security Lisa Donnan. “But moving to IPv6 isn’t enough. Networks must add layers of defense to their security infrastructure to address specific IPv6 threats.”
By 2012, all public-facing servers and services must use native IPv6. By 2014, all internal applications that communicate with public Internet servers must also transition. Additionally, each agency must have an IPv6 transition manager to ensure agency procurements of networked IT comply with FAR requirements.
The number of IPv6 flaws that traditional hardware and software assurance vendors can detect is limited because there are significant differences between IPv4 and IPv6 protocols. Attackers are actively using IPv6 to tunnel into networks because traffic going through IPv6 transition mechanisms is undetectable by most firewalls and routers. Even if IPv6 is not enabled on the network, many of these security concerns still remain.
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