RE: [fw-wiz] Dynamic routing on a firewall

From: Alan Holmes (alan_at_tympaniinc.com)
Date: 11/28/03

  • Next message: Ben Nagy: "RE: [fw-wiz] Dynamic routing on a firewall"
    To: "'Dawes, Rogan (ZA - Johannesburg)'" <rdawes@deloitte.co.za>, <firewall-wizards@honor.icsalabs.com>
    Date: Fri, 28 Nov 2003 16:06:00 -0600
    
    

    Short answer, NO! do not let firewall participate in routing protocols.

    Long answer, sometimes you have to. If so the security is a function of
    the security features in the routing protocol, i.e. OSPF supports
    authentication. A firewall can not really do much more than the security
    features built into the routing protocol.

    -----Original Message-----
    From: firewall-wizards-admin@honor.icsalabs.com
    [mailto:firewall-wizards-admin@honor.icsalabs.com] On Behalf Of Dawes,
    Rogan (ZA - Johannesburg)
    Sent: Friday, November 28, 2003 3:39 AM
    To: firewall-wizards@honor.icsalabs.com
    Subject: [fw-wiz] Dynamic routing on a firewall

    Hi,

    I just wanted to pick the list's brain with regards to dynamic routing
    on a firewall.

    Is it a good idea to allow a firewall to participate in dynamic routing?
    My first thoughts are that it sounds like a really dangerous thing -
    you certainly don't want to have routes changing so that a DMZ moves
    from one interface to a different one, for instance.

    But if the routing can be controlled so that traffic always goes through
    the right interface (but possibly to a different upstream router), that
    should be OK, I would think.

    What mechanisms do the various firewalls (mostly interested in Pix and
    FW-1) have to sanity-check routing updates that they receive?

    A (simplistic) scenario that could illustrate my concerns:

    You have a firewall controlling access to third parties (competitors)
    which provide services to your company. Each party is in their own DMZ.
    You have dynamic routing enabled on the firewall, since there are two
    redundant routers for each party in each parties DMZ, and you need to be
    able to fail over from one to the other.

    Party A sends a routing update to say that party B is now reachable via
    Party A's networks. Any packets that you try to send to party B end up
    going to Party A, where they can be captured, etc.

    Leaving out the question of how A gets the packets to B eventually, to
    complete the connection, is this a realistic scenario? How can one
    protect against something like this, using the abovementioned firewalls,
    if one still chooses to use dynamic routing?

    Rogan

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  • Next message: Ben Nagy: "RE: [fw-wiz] Dynamic routing on a firewall"

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