Understanding DAI
These sections describe how DAI helps prevent ARP spoofing attacks:
Understanding ARP Spoofing Attacks
Understanding DAI and ARP Spoofing Attacks
Understanding ARP
ARP provides IP communication within a Layer 2 broadcast domain by mapping an IP address to a MAC address. For example, Host B wants to send information to Host A but does not have the MAC address of Host A in its ARP cache. Host B generates a broadcast message for all hosts within the broadcast domain to obtain the MAC address associated with the IP address of Host A. All hosts within the broadcast domain receive the ARP request, and Host A responds with its MAC address.
Understanding ARP Spoofing Attacks
ARP spoofing attacks and ARP cache poisoning can occur because ARP allows a gratuitous reply from a host even if an ARP request was not received. After the attack, all traffic from the device under attack flows through the attacker's computer and then to the router, switch, or host.
An ARP spoofing attack can target hosts, switches, and routers connected to your Layer 2 network by poisoning the ARP caches of systems connected to the subnet and by intercepting traffic intended for other hosts on the subnet. Figure 56-1 shows an example of ARP cache poisoning.
Figure 56-1 ARP Cache Poisoning
Hosts A, B, and C are connected to the switch on interfaces A, B and C, all of which are on the same subnet. Their IP and MAC addresses are shown in parentheses; for example, Host A uses IP address IA and MAC address MA. When Host A needs to communicate to Host B at the IP layer, it broadcasts an ARP request for the MAC address associated with IP address IB. When the switch and Host B receive the ARP request, they populate their ARP caches with an ARP binding for a host with the IP address IA and a MAC address MA; for example, IP address IA is bound to MAC address MA. When Host B responds, the switch and Host A populate their ARP caches with a binding for a host with the IP address IB and the MAC address MB.
Host C can poison the ARP caches of the switch for Host A, and Host B by broadcasting forged ARP responses with bindings for a host with an IP address of IA (or IB) and a MAC address of MC. Hosts with poisoned ARP caches use the MAC address MC as the destination MAC address for traffic intended for IA or IB. This means that Host C intercepts that traffic. Because Host C knows the true MAC addresses associated with IA and IB, it can forward the intercepted traffic to those hosts by using the correct MAC address as the destination. Host C has inserted itself into the traffic stream from Host A to Host B, which is the topology of the classic man-in-the middle attack.
Understanding DAI and ARP Spoofing Attacks
DAI is a security feature that validates ARP packets in a network. DAI intercepts, logs, and discards ARP packets with invalid IP-to-MAC address bindings. This capability protects the network from some man-in-the-middle attacks.
DAI ensures that only valid ARP requests and responses are relayed. The switch performs these activities:
Intercepts all ARP requests and responses on untrusted ports
Verifies that each of these intercepted packets has a valid IP-to-MAC address binding before updating the local ARP cache or before forwarding the packet to the appropriate destination
Drops invalid ARP packets
DAI determines the validity of an ARP packet based on valid IP-to-MAC address bindings stored in a trusted database, the DHCP snooping binding database. This database is built by DHCP snooping if DHCP snooping is enabled on the VLANs and on the switch. If the ARP packet is received on a trusted interface, the switch forwards the packet without any checks. On untrusted interfaces, the switch forwards the packet only if it is valid.
DAI can validate ARP packets against user-configured ARP access control lists (ACLs) for hosts with statically configured IP addresses (see "Applying ARP ACLs for DAI Filtering" section). The switch logs dropped packets (see the "Logging of Dropped Packets" section).
You can configure DAI to drop ARP packets when the IP addresses in the packets are invalid or when the MAC addresses in the body of the ARP packets do not match the addresses specified in the Ethernet header (see the "Enabling Additional Validation" section).