The switch from IPv4 to IPv6 will force many organizations to rethink the way their networks are defended. The result will be a shift away from the "guilty until proven innocent" attitude to incoming network traffic, toward one of "paranoid openness."
That's the view of Eric Vyncke, a Distinguished Engineer at Cisco Systems. Talking at the RSA Conference in London last month, he said that it is only when organizations become more open to incoming traffic that they will get the full benefits of IPv6.

Many companies have delayed thinking about a move to the next generation IPv6 Internet protocol because there is little benefit in being a "first mover," but sometime in the next few years the remaining free IPv4 IP addresses will be used up. When that happens the world will be forced over time to move to IPv6, which offers 128 bit addresses (instead of IPv4's 32 bit addresses), resulting in a staggering 2 ^ 128 different possible IP addresses . That's more than enough to assign a unique IP address to every atom on the surface of the earth, let alone every network connected server, desktop computer, laptop, smartphone, Web camera, and any other device that will ever be manufactured and connected to a corporate network. The benefits for many organizations of this end-to-end IPv6 connectivity could be very significant indeed.

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