On the security of the Mobile IP protocol family

The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) has worked on network layer mobility for more than 10 years and a number of RFCs are available by now. Although the IETF mobility protocols are not present in the Internet infrastructure as of today, deployment seems to be imminent since a number of organizations, including 3GPP, 3GPP2 and Wimax, have realized the need to incorporate these protocols into their architectures. Deployment scenarios reach from mobility support within the network of a single provider to mobility support between different providers and technologies. Current Wimax specifications, for example, already support Mobile IPv4, Proxy Mobile IPv4 and Mobile IPv6. Future specifications will also support Proxy Mobile IPv6. Upcoming specifications in the 3GPP Evolved Packet Core (EPC) will include the use of Mobile IPv4, Dual Stack MIPv6 and Proxy Mobile IPv6 for interworking between 3GPP and non 3GPP networks. This paper provides an overview on the state-of-the-art in IETF mobility protocols as they are being considered by standardization organizations outside the IETF and focusing on security aspects.