COMMON WEAKNESS ENUMERATIONIncomplete

CWE-291

Reliance on IP Address for Authentication

The product uses an IP address for authentication.

Abstraction

Variant

Structure

Simple

Likelihood of Exploit

High

Understand the problem

What is the problem?

The product uses an IP address for authentication.

Extended description

IP addresses can be easily spoofed. Attackers can forge the source IP address of the packets they send, but response packets will return to the forged IP address. To see the response packets, the attacker has to sniff the traffic between the victim machine and the forged IP address. In order to accomplish the required sniffing, attackers typically attempt to locate themselves on the same subnet as the victim machine. Attackers may be able to circumvent this requirement by using source routing, but source routing is disabled across much of the Internet today. In summary, IP address verification can be a useful part of an authentication scheme, but it should not be the single factor required for authentication.

Root cause

How and when does the problem arise?

Lifecycle phase

Architecture and Design

COMMISSION: This weakness refers to an incorrect design related to an architectural security tactic.

Risk

What does successful exploitation lead to?

Hide ActivitiesGain Privileges or Assume Identity

Affected security scopes: Access Control, Non-Repudiation

Malicious users can fake authentication information, impersonating any IP address.

Defence

How is it prevented and fixed?

Architecture and Design

Architecture and design approach

Detail
Use other means of identity verification that cannot be simply spoofed. Possibilities include a username/password or certificate.