Security Considerations for IPv6

PC World ran an article last week on the security concerns around transitioning to IPv6. It's a relevant topic with World IPv6 day coming this week, and with the runout of IPv4 address space.

Number one on their list of concerns was security when translating between IPv4 and IPv6, and the concern that a transaction that starts out securely in one or the other technology might open itself up to being attacked when translated to the to other technology.

That's when it's important to consider technology that actually proxies IPv4 traffic to IPv6 rather than bridges the traffic. A proxy of course terminates the traffic and creates a completely new secure transaction to the destination. In addition as the proxy is a security device and should already have security implemented, compared with a device like a switch that's acting as a translation device.

No matter how you integrate IPv6, you'll want to make sure your remember security as part of the deployment scenario.