On Mon, Jan 25, 2021 at 10:18 AM Michael Thomas <[email protected]> wrote:

>
> On 1/25/21 5:25 AM, Todd Herr wrote:
>
> On Sun, Jan 24, 2021 at 9:53 PM Michael Thomas <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>>
>> On 1/24/21 6:29 PM, John R. Levine wrote:
>> > I realized why the arguments about whether to require authentication
>> > on reports are pointless.
>> >
>> A blatant assertion. The onus of proof is with people who say we should
>> accept information from unknown sources. Extraordinary claims require
>> extraordinary evidence. I have been doing security related stuff for
>> long enough to know that being humble in the face of adversaries is the
>> most prudent course. State actors can get involved when they figure they
>> can game things to their advantage. To be dismissive is complete hubris.
>>
>>
> I've spent several days thinking about these tickets, and for the life of
> me I can't see what the payoff might be for someone to forge a DMARC report.
>
> I suppose nominally there's a denial of service risk, where a bad actor
> could flood a rua or ruf mailbox with forged reports or just email in
> general, but that's going to exist whether or not the "reports" are
> DKIM-signed.
>
> The main thing I've learned over the years of dealing with security is to
> not underestimate what a motivated attacker can do. Your imagination is not
> the same as their imagination. Closing #98 in particular is absolutely
> ridiculous: the report should already have a DKIM signature or SPF so it's
> just a matter of making sure its valid. Why would you *not* want to insure
> that? The amount of justification for *not* having the receiver
> authenticate it is a mountain. The amount of effort to authenticate it is
> trivial for mail. Levine's dismissal of security concerns because he has
> anecdotal "evidence" from a backwater domain carries no weight at all.
>

That's all well and good, but you haven't answered the question I asked.

What threats do you have in mind? Put another way, how do you envision an
attacker exploiting the lack of authentication in a DMARC report to his or
her gain?

I recognize that my imagination, or yours, may not match what a motivated
attacker can do. I have presented some possible scenarios that might result
from a forged DMARC report, and in them I don't see a gain for the
attacker, unless his or her goal is to be an annoyance to the target.

Can you please describe a scenario where an attacker might use a forged
DMARC report to gain something of value from the target of his/her forgery?

-- 

*Todd Herr* | Sr. Technical Program Manager
*e:* [email protected]
*p:* 703.220.4153


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