DirectAccess IP-HTTPS Preauthentication


Introduction

DirectAccess IP-HTTPS PreauthenticationRecently I’ve written about the security challenges with DirectAccess, specifically around the use of the IP-HTTPS IPv6 transition technology. In its default configuration, the DirectAccess server does not authenticate the client when an IP-HTTPS transition tunnel is established. This opens up the possibility of an unauthorized user launching Denial-of-Service (DoS) attacks and potentially performing network reconnaissance using ICMPv6. More details on this can be found here.

Mitigation

The best way to mitigate these security risks is to implement an Application Delivery Controller (ADC) such as the F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager or the Citrix NetScaler. I’ve documented how to configure those platforms here and here.

No ADC?

For those organizations that do not have a capable ADC deployed, it is possible to configure the IP-HTTPS listener on the Windows Server 2012 R2 server itself to perform preauthentication.

Important Note: Making the following changes on the DirectAccess server is not formally supported. Also, this change is incompatible with one-time passwords (OTP)  and should not be performed if strong user authentication is enabled. In addition, null cipher suites will be disabled, resulting in reduced scalability and degraded performance for Windows 8.x and Windows 10 clients. Making this change should only be done if a suitable ADC is not available.

Configure IP-HTTPS Preauthentication

To configure the DirectAccess server to perform preauthentication for IP-HTTPS connections, open an elevated PowerShell command window and enter the following command.

ls Cert:\LocalMachine\My

DirectAccess IP-HTTPS Preauthentication

Copy the thumbprint that belongs to the SSL certificate assigned to the IP-HTTPS listener. Open an elevated command prompt window (not a PowerShell window!) and enter the following commands.

netsh http delete sslcert ipport=0.0.0.0:443
netsh http add sslcert ipport=0.0.0.0:443 certhash=[thumbprint]
appid={5d8e2743-ef20-4d38-8751-7e400f200e65}
dsmapperusage=enable clientcertnegotiation=enable

DirectAccess IP-HTTPS Preauthentication

For load-balanced clusters and multisite deployments, repeat these steps on each DirectAccess server in the cluster and/or enterprise.

Summary

Once these changes have been made, only DirectAccess clients that have a computer certificate with a subject name that matches the name of its computer account in Active Directory will be allowed to establish an IP-HTTPS transition tunnel connection.

Configure Citrix NetScaler for DirectAccess NLS

DirectAccess and Citrix NetScaler WebinarIntroduction

The Network Location Server (NLS) is a crucial DirectAccess supporting infrastructure component. It is secure web server that DirectAccess clients use to determine if they are inside or outside of the corporate network.

NLS Availability

The NLS should be highly available. If this service is not available, DirectAccess clients on the internal network will think they are outside and attempt to establish a DirectAccess connection. Typically, this results in the DirectAccess client not being able to reach internal resources by hostname. Full connectivity for DirectAccess clients on the internal network will not be restored until the NLS is online.

It is recommended that the NLS be deployed in a load-balanced cluster for high availability. However, this requires deploying multiple servers, adding more cost, complexity, and management overhead to the solution.

NLS and Citrix NetScaler

Configuring the Citrix NetScaler to serve as the NLS is an attractive alternative to deploying additional servers for this role. Using the NetScaler for the NLS reduces costs by leveraging existing infrastructure. In addition, the NetScaler requires less servicing than a typical Windows server, and is often itself already highly available.

Configure Citrix NetScaler

To configure the NetScaler to serve as a DirectAccess NLS, open the NetScaler management console, expand AppExpert, and then select Actions. Click Add, provide a descriptive name for the responder action, and then enter the following in the Expression field and click Create.

"HTTP/1.0 200 OK" +"\r\n\r\n" + "DirectAccess Network Location Server (NLS)" + "\r\n"

Configure Citrix NetScaler for DirectAccess NLS

Select Policies, click Add, and then provide a descriptive name for the responder policy. Enter HTTP.REQ.IS_VALID in the Expression field and click Create.

Configure Citrix NetScaler for DirectAccess NLS

Expand Traffic Management, expand Load Balancing and select Services. Click Add, provide a descriptive name for the service, choose New Server, and enter the IPv4 loopback address 127.0.0.1. Select SSL for the Protocol, enter a random port number for the Port and then click More.

Configure Citrix NetScaler for DirectAccess NLS

Uncheck the box next to Health Monitoring and click Ok and Done.

Configure Citrix NetScaler for DirectAccess NLS

Select Virtual Servers and click Add. Provide a descriptive name for the virtual server, select SSL for the Protocol, enter an IP address for the virtual server and click Ok.

Configure Citrix NetScaler for DirectAccess NLS

Under Services and Service Groups click No Load Balancing Virtual Server Service Binding.

Configure Citrix NetScaler for DirectAccess NLS

Click to select a service, choose the service created previously and click Ok, Bind and Ok.

Configure Citrix NetScaler for DirectAccess NLS

Under Certificates click No Server Certificate.

Configure Citrix NetScaler for DirectAccess NLS

Click to select a server certificate, choose the SSL certificate to be used by the NLS and click Ok, Bind, and Ok.

Configure Citrix NetScaler for DirectAccess NLS

Under Advanced click Policies, and then click the + icon. From the Choose Policy drown-list choose Responder and click Continue. Click to select a Policy Binding and choose the responder policy created previously. Click Ok, Bind, and Done.

Configure Citrix NetScaler for DirectAccess NLS

Testing NLS Functionality

Open a web browser on a client connected to the internal network and browse to the NLS URL. Ensure that there are no certificate errors and that the NetScaler is responding with the configured web page.

Configure Citrix NetScaler for DirectAccess NLS

Summary

The Network Location Server (NLS) is an important, and often overlooked, supporting infrastructure component for DirectAccess. It is used by DirectAccess clients to determine their network location. If it is unavailable for any reason it can be very disruptive. Ensuring that the NLS is highly available is critical. Configuring the NLS on the Citrix NetScaler can be a cost-effective alternative to deploying additional servers, while at the same time reducing the chance of an outage due to NLS failure.

DirectAccess IP-HTTPS Preauthentication using Citrix NetScaler

Note: For information about configuring the F5 BIG-IP to perform IP-HTTPS preauthentication, click hereFor information about configuring Windows Server 2012 R2 or Windows Server 2016 to perform IP-HTTPS preauthentication natively, click here.

Introduction

DirectAccess IP-HTTPS Preauthentication using Citrix NetScalerIP-HTTPS is an IPv6 transition technology used by DirectAccess. It enables DirectAccess clients to communicate with the DirectAccess server using IPv6 over the public IPv4 Internet by encapsulating IPv6 packets in HTTP and authenticating (and optionally encrypting) them using SSL/TLS. IP-HTTPS is supported for all DirectAccess network deployment configurations and is enabled by default.

When a DirectAccess client connection is established, only the server is authenticated by the client. The client is not authenticated by the server. The DirectAccess server will thus accept IP-HTTPS connections from any client, valid or not.

IP-HTTPS Connection

Once a client has established an IP-HTTPS transition tunnel, it will go through the standard IPv6 neighbor discovery process to identify routers and obtain an IPv6 prefix for the link. It will use this information to build its own IPv6 address, which it uses to communicate with the DirectAccess server and begin establishing IPsec security associations for DirectAccess.

ICMP and IPsec

By design, ICMP is exempt from DirectAccess IPsec policy processing. If an unauthorized client were to establish an IP-HTTPS transition tunnel, even without authentication (Kerberos Proxy or certificate) it would be able to ping the DirectAccess server tunnel endpoint IPv6 addresses, the DNS64 IPv6 address, and any intranet hosts (assuming host firewalls allow this access).

Security Risk

This default posture opens up the DirectAccess server and intranet to unauthorized remote network reconnaissance and some IPv6-related Denial-of-Service (DoS) attacks. These were demonstrated by security researcher Ali Hardudi at the recent Troopers16 security conference. You can view his very informative session here.

Note: DirectAccess IPsec data connections are unaffected and are completely secure. Data is never exposed at any time with the default configuration.

IP-HTTPS Preauthentication

DirectAccess IP-HTTPS Preauthentication using Citrix NetScalerTo mitigate these risks, it is recommended that an Application Delivery Controller (ADC) such as the Citrix NetScaler be configured to preauthenticate DirectAccess clients prior to establishing the IP-HTTPS transition tunnel.

Note: To configure the F5 BIG-IP to perform IP-HTTPS preauthentication, click here.

Citrix NetScaler Configuration

To perform DirectAccess preauthentication, it will be necessary to configure the Citrix NetScaler to perform SSL termination for IP-HTTPS. The virtual server on the NetScaler must use the SSL protocol. In addition, a CA certificate must be bound to the virtual server. Also, Client Authentication must be enabled under SSL Parameters and be set to Mandatory.

DirectAccess IP-HTTPS Preauthentication using Citrix NetScaler

Once configured, the NetScaler appliance will ensure that the DirectAccess IPsec certificate is present on the client before establishing the IP-HTTPS IPv6 transition tunnel. This will prevent unauthorized connections to the DirectAccess server.

Important Considerations

Performing IP-HTTPS preauthentication on the Citrix NetScaler is formally unsupported by Microsoft. In addition, terminating IP-HTTPS on the NetScaler appliance breaks OTP authentication.

Summary

The default security posture of DirectAccess leaves the internal network open to unauthorized network reconnaissance, and exposes the DirectAccess infrastructure to potential denial-of-service (DoS) attacks. To mitigate these security risks, implement the Citrix NetScaler ADC and enable client certificate authentication.

References

Security Assessment of Microsoft DirectAccess [Overview] – https://www.insinuator.net/2016/04/security-assessment-of-microsoft-directaccess/

Security Assessment of Microsoft DirectAccess [Full Document] – https://www.ernw.de/newsfeed/newsletter-53-may-2016-security-assessment-of-microsoft-directaccess/index.html

Security Assessment of Microsoft DirectAccess Troopers16 Presentation by Ali Hardudi [Video] – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wW1x7ow0V9w

Chiron IPv6 Penetration Testing Framework – https://www.insinuator.net/2014/10/chiron-an-all-in-one-ipv6-penetration-testing-framework/

IP-HTTPS specification on MSDN – https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd358571.aspx

Configure F5 BIG-IP to Perform IP-HTTPS Preauthentication – https://directaccess.richardhicks.com/2016/05/23/directaccess-ip-https-preauthentication-using-f5-big-ip/

Configure Windows Server 2012 R2  and Windows Server 2016 to Perform IP-HTTPS Preauthentication – https://directaccess.richardhicks.com/2016/06/13/directaccess-ip-https-preauthentication/