Logical Partition Media Access Control Impostor Detector

• US 20120222113A1
• Filed: 05/08/2012
• Published: 08/30/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 12/24/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Keohane, Susann M., McBrearty, Gerald F., Mullen, Shawn P., Murillo, Jessica C., Shieh, Johnny M.
• Granted Patent: US 9,130,987 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 726/22
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/10 Active monitoring, e.g. heartbeat, ping or trace-route
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/0428 wherein the data content is protected, e.g. by encrypting or encapsulating the payload
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/1466 Active attacks involving interception, injection, modification, spoofing of data unit addresses, e.g. hijacking, packet injection or TCP sequence number attacks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/1475 Passive attacks, e.g. eavesdropping or listening without modification of the traffic monitored
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/1483 service impersonation, e.g. phishing, pharming or web spoofing detection of rogue wireless access points H04W12/12

Abstract

Provided are techniques for to enable a virtual input/output server (VIOS) to establish cryptographically secure signals with target LPARs to detect an imposter or spoofing LPAR. The secure signal, or “heartbeat,” may be configured as an Internet Key Exchange/Internet Protocol Security (IKE/IPSec) encapsulated packet (ESP) connection or tunnel. Within the tunnel, the VIOS pings each target LPAR and, if a heartbeat is interrupted, the VIOS makes a determination as to whether the tunnel is broken, the corresponding LPAR is down or a media access control (MAC) spoofing attach is occurring. The determination is made by sending a heartbeat that is designed to fail unless the heartbeat is received by a spoofing device.

Claims

1. A computing system, comprising:

a processor;

a computer-readable storage medium, coupled to the processor; and

logic, stored on the computer-readable storage medium and executed on the processor, for;

establishing a plurality of cryptographically secure channels, each channel between a monitoring device and a monitored device of a plurality of monitored devices, each monitored device associated with unique address;

transmitting a heartbeat from the monitoring device to a first monitored device of the plurality of monitored devices via a first secure channel, corresponding to the first monitored device, of the plurality of secure channels;

if a response to the heartbeat is received, transmitting a second heartbeat from the monitoring device to a second monitored device of the plurality of monitored devices via the first secure channel; and

if a response to the heartbeat is not received, executing a spoofing detection scheme, comprising;

transmitting a second heartbeat to the first monitored device via an address associated with a second monitored device;

receiving a response to the second heartbeat; and

determining that a spoofing attack has occurred by the fact that the response to the second heartbeat has been received.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the monitored devices are logical partitions (LPARs) of a computing device.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the monitoring device is a virtual input/output server (VIOS) of the computing device.

4. The system of claim 1, the logic further comprising logic for determining that the first secure channel is broken by the fact that the response to the second heartbeat is not received.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the cryptographically secure channels are based on an Internet Key Exchange/Internet Protocol Security (IKE/IPSec) encapsulated packet (ESP) protocol.

6. A computing programming product, comprising:

a computer-readable storage medium; and

logic, stored on the computer-readable storage medium for execution on a processor, for;

establishing a plurality of cryptographically secure channels, each channel between a monitoring device and a monitored device of a plurality of monitored devices, each monitored device associated with unique address;

transmitting a heartbeat from the monitoring device to a first monitored device of the plurality of monitor devices via a first secure channel, corresponding to the first monitored device, of the plurality of secure channels;

if a response to the heartbeat is received, transmitting a second heartbeat from the monitoring device to a second monitored device of the plurality of monitored. devices via the first secure channel; and

if a response to the heartbeat is not received, executing a spoofing detection scheme, comprising;

transmitting a second heartbeat to the first monitored device via an address associated with a second monitored device;

receiving a response to the second heartbeat; and

determining that a spooling attack has occurred by the fact that the response to the second heartbeat has been received.

7. The computing programming product of claim 6, wherein the monitored devices are logical partitions (LPARs) of a computing device.

8. The computing programming product of claim 6, wherein the monitoring device is a virtual input/output server (VIOS) of the computing device.

9. The computing programming product of claim 6, the logic further comprising logic for determining that the first secure channel is broken by the fact that the response to the second heartbeat is not received.

10. The computing programming product of claim 6, wherein the cryptographically secure channels are based on an Internet Key Exchange/Internet Protocol Security (IKE/IPSec) encapsulated packet (ESP) protocol.