Exploiting Cross-Layer Vulnerabilities: Off-Path Attacks on the TCP/IP Protocol Suite
Xuewei Feng, Qi Li, Kun Sun, Ke Xu, Jianping Wu
TL;DR
Through a comprehensive analysis of interactions among Wi-Fi, IP, ICMP, ICMP, UDP, and TCP due to ICMP errors, several significant vulnerabilities are uncovered, including information leakage, desynchronization, semantic gaps, and identity spoofing.
Abstract
After more than 40 years of development, the fundamental TCP/IP protocol suite, serving as the backbone of the Internet, is widely recognized for having achieved an elevated level of robustness and security. Distinctively, we take a new perspective to investigate the security implications of cross-layer interactions within the TCP/IP protocol suite caused by ICMP error messages. Through a comprehensive analysis of interactions among Wi-Fi, IP, ICMP, UDP, and TCP due to ICMP errors, we uncover several significant vulnerabilities, including information leakage, desynchronization, semantic gaps, and identity spoofing. These vulnerabilities can be exploited by off-path attackers to manipulate network traffic stealthily, affecting over 20% of popular websites and more than 89% of public Wi-Fi networks, thus posing risks to the Internet. By responsibly disclosing these vulnerabilities to affected vendors and proposing effective countermeasures, we enhance the robustness of the TCP/IP protocol suite, receiving acknowledgments from well-known organizations such as the Linux community, the OpenWrt community, the FreeBSD community, Wi-Fi Alliance, Qualcomm, HUAWEI, China Telecom, Alibaba, and H3C.