A Survey of the SEcure Neighbor Discovery (SEND) and Multi-Key Cryptographically Generated Addresses (MCGAs)

Abstract

Most recently computer network products support Internet protocol version 6 (IPv6) on additionally. In IPv6 network, nodes on the same link use neighbor discovery (ND) to discover their default routers on the local link, to determine each other's link-layer addresses, to find routers and to maintain reachability information about the paths to active neighbors. But ND does not have a secure mechanism to protect itself. Because of this, the ND protocol was implemented with the ICMP message types. Previously in IPv4 network, the ICMP message was not treated as a secure manner. In IPv6 network, nevertheless, there is a necessity of protection mechanism because ND has many automated function standing in a network operator's shoes in the network. To secure ND, IETF SEND working group organized and standardized a secure neighbor discovery (SEND) protocol for the ND protection mechanism. But it cannot provide security for the ND proxy, which is required for mobility. Therefore a new mechanism called a multi-key cryptographically generated addresses (MCGAs) was proposed. In this paper, we survey researches on SEND protocol and MCGAs.