Today is World IPV6 Day with a number of organisations starting to offer Internet services using the replacement Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) standard, that contains a number of improvements over the legacy IPv4. A key benefit is a huge increase in possible address space.
From a security perspective, Symantec feels this move raises some new and potentially interesting problems for malware authors, anti-virus companies and system/network administrators. With the introduction of IPv6, it is now unlikely for cyber criminals to perform brute force IPv6 address scans to profile a network or identify a possible attack vector in this way.
Events like World IPv6 Day are important steps towards a full adoption of the replacement protocol. But as we move towards this goal, we are facing a learning curve where new threats while not yet fully apparent, will gradually emerge as malware authors are certain to take note and begin adapting.
As always, Symantec recommends that you keep your definitions, signatures and firewall rules up to date to ensure protection against threats.
Read more about this brave new world of IPv6 at Symantec’s security blog.
