Review of Security Research on Address Resolution Protocols

Abstract

Address resolution protocols (ARPs includes ARP, NDP, SEND, etc.) play an important role in network communication; the security of the ARPs is the premise and guarantee of network security. ARPs consists of three phases: acquisition of the mapping of the target address; duplicate address detection; data structure maintenance. In this paper, we analyze the existing ARPs according to these three phases, analyze security threats and the corresponding attack methods; classify and describe the existing studies on ARPs security. Our analysis shows that the main factors that restrict the development of ARPs are the contradiction between efficiency and cost and the lack of theoretical support in protocol design. Finally, the development of ARPs is prospected.