Authenticated Routing Protocol

[Robert Molina]

Which type of attack can be mitigated by authenticating a routing protocol? I know that we use authentication for OSPF, BGP, etc. to prevent attacks, but what attacks does authentication prevent?

Thank you,

[Richard Burts]

It would be an attack in which a bad actor injects incorrect routes into the network routing table by sending what appear to be routing updates for the routing protocol used in that network OSPF, BGP, etc.

HTH

Rick

[Robert Molina]

So would you say that these types of attacks are mitigated?

Man-in-the-middle

Spoofing

Denial of service

Reconnaissance

[Richard Burts]

Depending on how you define it, you might think that spoofing was mitigated if you think of inserting incorrect routing protocol updates as pretending to come from a regular router in the network as spoofing. But the generally used understanding of spoofing is to send packets where you have falsified the source address to that it appears to come from somewhere not where it really came from. So realistically I would say that none of the attacks that you mention are mitigated if the routing protocol uses authentication.

HTH

Rick

[Robert Molina]

Thanks Richard. In going through training for IINS 210-260, the Cisco e-learning has reconnaisance attack as the one that is not mitigated. The Official Certification Guide says it is spoofing that is not mitigated. Go figure that they contradict, so I thought I would ask the community.

Thanks again,

Robert

[Richard Burts · Accepted solution]

Robert

Thanks for clarifying that the context of this question was preparation for a certification exam. It is unfortunate that the two sources do not agree. I am not sure about it but if I had to choose between those two alternatives my sense is that it is more likely recon that is not mitigated. Perhaps someone else in the community might have some insight.

HTH

Rick