Defeating man-in-the-middle attacks in one leg of 1+1 redundant network paths

A method comprising:

• obtaining, at a replication point device in a network, a master secret from a network controller;
• computing, by the replication point device, a message integrity check (MIC) based on the master secret;
• encapsulating, by the replication point device, an incoming packet received by the replication point device via the network with the computed MIC and a sequence number;
• and
• providing, by the replication point device, copies of the encapsulated packet via redundant paths in the network towards an elimination point device, wherein the copies are 1+1 packet redundancies and the elimination point device uses the computed MIC to determine whether a given packet was injected maliciously into a particular one of the redundant paths.

An apparatus, comprising:

• one or more network interfaces to communicate with a network;
• a processor coupled to the one or more network interfaces and configured to execute one or more processes;
• and
• a memory configured to store a process executable by the processor, the process when executed configured to:
• obtain a master secret from a network controller;
• assess, using the master secret, whether an incoming packet received by the apparatus from a redundant path between the apparatus and a replication point device in the network includes a valid message integrity check (MIC), wherein the incoming packet is a 1+1 packet redundancy;
• determine whether the incoming packet was injected maliciously into the redundant path, based on the assessment of the incoming packet;
• and
• initiate performance of a mitigation action in the network, when the apparatus determines that the incoming packet was injected maliciously into the redundant path.