IT departments have
been urged to start preparing staff for the introduction of
Internet Protocol version 6 to reduce the security risks of
deploying the technology for new
applications.
IPv6 is the replacement for IPv4, the protocol used to send and
receive network traffic. The main benefit of the new version is
that it offers an almost unlimited number of IP addresses. This is
important as the number of internet users and connected devices,
each requiring a unique IP
address, is set to increase rapidly over the next few
years.
Although operating systems such as Unix and Linux already support
IPv6, there is expected to be a huge increase in usage with the
release of Windows Vista, the next version of the Microsoft
operating system, next year.
Roy Hills, technical director at internet research firm NTA
Monitor, warned that many users do not fully understand IPv6.
"Since people have not had to use it there has been no requirement
for systems administrators to understand IPv6," he
said.
One risk for users is that no one is sure how IPv6 will perform on
networks, said Phil Cracknell, chief technology officer at IT
security supplier netSurity. "There is a total absence of test data
on how it will perform in terms of applications, management and
security infrastructure," he said.
Because of potential security vulnerabilities that could be created
by using IPv6, businesses should test it in a development
environment before rolling out the technology, Cracknell
added.
Richard Brain, technical
director at security consultancy Procheckup, said, "Modern
firewalls support IPv6 effectively, though there might be some bugs
in lesser-known protocols using IPv6, such as
ICMP."
He urged users to keep on using IPv4 and disable IPv6 where
possible. Brain said there have been serious security holes found
in IPv6 implementations. "Only use IPv6 if there is a need to - its
main function is to increase the number of addresses
available.
"IPv6 uses a lot more bandwidth than IPv4, as the packet size is
250% larger." Unless users have plenty of spare bandwidth and are
running out of IP addresses, there is no need to migrate to IPv6,
Brain said.