Implementing Zero Trust in IPv6 Environments

Zero Trust Architecture (ZTA) requires rethinking network security for IPv6’s expanded attack surface.

Core Principles Applied to IPv6

• Never Trust, Always Verify: Every IPv6 packet and connection must be authenticated
• Least Privilege Access: Micro-segmentation at the IPv6 subnet level
• Assume Breach: Continuous monitoring of IPv6 traffic flows

IPv6-Specific ZTA Considerations

• Address-Based Policies: Leveraging IPv6’s hierarchical addressing for policy enforcement
• NDP Security: Securing Neighbor Discovery Protocol in zero-trust environments
• Transition Mechanism Security: Protecting tunnels and translation points

Implementation Strategy

1. Identity-Centric Security: Move from IP-based to identity-based access control
2. Network Micro-segmentation: Create secure zones using IPv6 prefix boundaries
3. Continuous Authentication: Implement posture checks for IPv6 endpoints
4. Encrypted Communications: Use of non-compromised encrypted protocols for all IPv6 communications.

Learn about our implementation services

Hardware

Original Internet service provider Optical Network Terminal (ONT) and Firewall complete removal for replacement .

• New Advanced Espionage-proof IPv6 ONT, router and firewall equipment installation. Our equipment is not compromised by intelligence agencies and goverments.

Disabled Intel Management engine (ME) and coreboot open-source boot firmware (BIOS replacement) in servers and computers.

• Offering enhanced security and privacy by eliminating hidden, always-on intelligence agencies and goverment non-autorized accesses.

Software

We encourage the use of Linux operating systems.

The use of Linux can reduce the risk of unwanted monitoring for several reasons:

• 1. Open Source: The source code for Linux and most of its applications is publicly available, allowing a global community of developers and security researchers to inspect it for vulnerabilities, backdoors, and unintended data collection (telemetry).
• 2. Transparency and Control: Users typically have far more granular control over what data leaves their system and what software runs on it.
• 3. Reduced Attack Surface: Linux distributions often come with minimal pre-installed software and services compared to commercial operating systems, reducing the overall “attack surface” that could be exploited.

Linux and Hardware holistic approach:

• However, the operating system is only one layer of security. The hardware and firmware (BIOS/UEFI) are also critical potential weak points. This is why the previous discussion mentioned computers with features like coreboot firmware and a disabled Intel Management Engine (ME).

Secure IPv6 Implementation Procedures

Implementing IPv6 requires careful attention to security considerations that differ from IPv4.

Unique technology advantages

1. No NAT old tehcnlogoy:

• IPv6 offers a virtually unlimited address space, which eliminates the need for Network Address Translation (NAT). Every device can have its own public IP, removing the complexity of translating private addresses to a single public one.

2. No port forwarding old technology:

• In IPv4, port forwarding is used to direct traffic from a router’s public IP to a specific internal device. With IPv6, you communicate directly with a device’s global address, so you only need to open a “pinhole” in the high-technology IPv6 firewall rather than configure a translation rule.

3. No confusing Unified internal/external addresses old technology:

• Because every device uses its global address for both local and internet communication, the distinction between “internal” (private) and “external” (public) addresses disappears.

4. Elimination of split-horizon DNS old technology:

• Split-horizon DNS is often used in IPv4 to return a private IP for internal users and a public IP for external users. With IPv6, the address is the same regardless of the user’s location, making this setup unnecessary for most basic home or small business use cases.

5. No more hairpin routing old technology:

• Hairpinning (or NAT loopback) occurs in IPv4 when an internal device tries to access another internal device using its public IP address. Since IPv6 devices communicate directly using their global addresses, traffic no longer needs to “loop back” through the router’s NAT engine.

6. Reduced need for SNI proxies:

• While SNI (Server Name Indication) is still a fundamental part of TLS, the need for complex SNI proxies to share a single public IPv4 address across multiple servers is reduced, as each server can simply have its own dedicated IPv6 address.