IPAM Technology Offers a Complete End-To-End IPv6 Platform & New Ultra DDI Offered by Neustar

(TCP IP World) BlueCat Networks launched Proteus IPAM version 3.5 this week, which claims to have the most end-to-end IP address management solution for both IPv4 andIPv6 networks. Proteus IP address management version 3.5 integrates the management of the whole IPv4 and IPv6 architecture on only one user interface making it painless for enterprise to launch IPv6 networks. Proteus IPAM version 3.5 is equipped with dual-stack IPv4/IPv6 management.

Typical, everyday challenges enterprises face when wanting to launch IPv6 are finding resources to plan, model, map and implement an IPv6 network as well as determining if  IP management systems, currently in place, use IPv6 gadgets and networks. Addresses need to be represented in hexadecimal and managed in 128 bits while each IPv6 gadget will have multiple IP addresses. AAAA resource records will need to be managed externally and internally.

Today, IPv6-only traffic represents a relatively small amount of all Internet traffic, but the number of allocated IPv6 addresses is increasing rapidly. This represents a growing trend of new IPv6-enabled ISPs and Cable providers that conduct their business using IPv6 exclusively because they can no longer receive the appropriate IPv4 space they need to serve their customers. Luc Roy, Vice President of Product Management & Marketing at BlueCat Networks said “Available IPv4 addresses from the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority will be exhausted by summer 2011, and as the number of IPv6-only clients grows and many new Internet-facing services begin to only support IPv6, deploying IPv6 will mean the difference between being seen or being absent on the Internet,” Roy continued. “So, the real question is not ‘if’ organizations should integrate IPv6, but ‘how’ it can best be planned, implemented and managed – we developed Proteus IPAM version 3.5 to provide a ‘path of least resistance’ to IPv6 by simplifying, expediting and eliminating the integration and management tasks that every IT department dreads.”

New Ultra DDI Offered by Neustar

Neustar Inc. announced a new way to easily integrate internal DNS, DHCP, and IPAM (IP Address Management) operations.

The new service called Neustar Ultra DDI (DNS, DHCP, IPAM) managed service consists of networking equipment using Infoblox appliances in addition to issue resolution, hardware lifecycle replenishment, software updates and equipment replacements. Neustar gurus conduct 24/7 monitoring and upgrading of backend DNS and DHCP operations while viewing approximately fifty health and usage parameters for proactive infrastructure management and case response. Neustar also keeps a database of important DNS and DHCP data points to allow trending and preparing for future growth and governance.

“Neustar exists to simplify network complexity,” said Alex Berry, senior VP of Neustar’s Internet Infrastructure Services (IIS) group. “DNS and DHCP are the linchpins for unifying networks and enhancing communications and it is becoming increasingly time- and labor-intensive for our customers to juggle multi-vendor management and network troubleshooting on their own. More customers are realizing that it simply makes good business sense to trust Neustar. We have built a sterling reputation in delivering and managing the core services underlying IP network infrastructures.”

Developing on the growth of Neustar’s December 2009 announcement, in which a strategic alliance with Infoblox was announced, the Ultra DDI solution delivers top DNS, DHCP and IP Address Management (IPAM) solutions to enterprise, public sector and service provider industries. With Ultra DDI, clients are enabled to use Neustar’s deep expertise in managed DNS services via Infoblox’s appliance-based systems allowing for high performance, reliability, and security as well as a significant decrease in operating costs.

“Infoblox and Neustar are rightfully regarded as leaders in their respective markets – and the collaboration between our two companies has resulted in an unparalleled service combination,” added Kevin Dickson, VP of Product Management at Infoblox. “We are excited that our relationship continues to mature, and this launch marks the next point of that evolution.”

What is a Denial of Service (DoS) attack?

Well, its the most common form of security attack, the easiest to perform and the hardest to track down and stop. A DoS (Denial of Service) attack by design sends a large enough amount of traffic to a host, group of hosts or network in order to overwhelm the target such that it cannot properly respond to legitimate traffic.

Below is a list of common DoS attacks:

Teardrop attack: 

Causes TCP/IP fragmentation reassembly code to improperly handle overlapping IPs.

Birthday attack: 

Based on the "birthday paradox" that more than two people in a group of 23 will share the same birthday is greater than 50 percent the birthday attack is a class of brute force attacks used to solve a class of cryptographic hash functions problems in hopes of producing a hash collision.

CPU Intensive attack: 

Used to tie up systems resources by using viruses or trojan programs to disable systems.

Ping of Death: 

ICMP echoes request of larger than 65535 that causes an input buffer overflow in certain systems.

DNS Poisoning: 

The act of exploiting a DNS server in order to make it return an invalid IP address to a name service request.

E-Mail attack: 

Designed to send so much mail to an inbox that it fills up with the bogus e-mail to the point that legitimate email cannot be sent or received.

TCP Syn Flood: 

Opens up a large number of random TCP ports to the point that the host uses many CPU cycles to compute bogus requests.

Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS): 

Denial of service attack ran from a pool of compromised hosts.

Land.C attack: 

TCP syn packets sent to a host with the address of the target in both the source and destination fields.

UDP Bomb: 

Packets sent with an illegal length field in the header causing a kernel panic and crash.

Spoof attack: 

Creating an IP packet with a spoofed source address that is legitimate inside the targeted network.

Chargen: 

Establishing a UDP service with an input of high characters in order to cause network congestion.

Man-In-The-Middle attack:

 An attacker routes all network data through them by manipulating routing tables.

Dialup Out-Of-Band attack: 

If an attacker knows the targets IP address they can exploit port 139 on Windows 95 systems. Also known as WinNuke.

Smurf attack:

 The art of sending a large amount of ICMP echos (pings) to the broadcast address of a subnet to slow down or disable the network from responding to legitimate traffic. Works best on large broadcast domains and rarely over routed connections since most routers today will disable directed broadcast traffic from traversing their interfaces.

There are many other types of security attacks out there and new exploits being found all the time. It is very important to have a strong Network Security Policy and protect your network with various pieces like secured perimeter routers, secure firewalls, IDS (Intrusion Detection System), IPS (Intrusion Prevention System) and strong authentication, authorization and accounting (AAA) systems. Virus protection and good network design are also always vital in the neverending process of securing your network.