The administrator must ensure the perimeter router is configured to drop all inbound and outbound IPv6 packets containing a Hop-by-Hop header with invalid option type values.

These options are intended to be for the Destination Options header only. The optional and extensible natures of the IPv6 extension headers require higher scrutiny since many implementations do not always drop packets with headers that it can’t recognize and hence could cause a DoS on the target device. In addition, the type, length, value (TLV) formatting provides the ability for headers to be very large. According to the DoD IPv6 IA Guidance for MO3, headers which may be valid but serve no intended use should not be allowed into or out of any network (S0-C2-opt-3).