Microsoft disputes local specialist on IPv6 tunnelling

New Zealand IPv6 specialist Dean Pemberton warns that a transitional protocol to IPv6 may have underlying security risks.

Teredo is one of several tunnelling protocols that carry IPv6 traffic encapsulated in IPv4 packets to ensure transmission over an IPv4 network. Teredo, moreover, is designed to ensure that the packets also cleanly cross network address translation (NAT) devices.

Recent Microsoft operating systems Vista and Windows 7 “turn on Teredo tunnelling almost by default”, Pemberton told a meeting of a special interest group in Wellington earlier this month. “If not by default, then very quickly it gets turned on by you installing something innocuous.”