The authors extend the use of traditional point-to-point message authentication to multireceiver and/or multisender scenarios. They provide efficient cryptographic authentication methods for point-to-multipoint communication, where a single sender can broadcast (multicast) only one unconditionally secure authenticator for a message and which all receivers can verify. They further develop multipoint-to-point communication (incast) in which any subset (of a specified size) of a group of individuals can transmit a single authenticator (or a signature) for a message using the group's key. This method has been called threshold authentication. It is an application layer that is transparent to the receiver which only deals with the group as one entity. The bandwidth, computations, and storage overheads are reduced substantially when compared with the traditional approach. Threshold authentication hides some aspects of the internal structure of the group, which may be important in interenterprise communication. >

Multi-receiver/multi-sender network security: efficient authenticated multicast/feedback

The IP security protocols are sufficiently mature to benefit from multiple independent implementations and worldwide deployment. Towards that goal, we implemented the protocols for the BSD/OS, Linux, OpenBSD and NetBSD. While some differences in the implementations exist due to the differences in the underlying operating system structures, the design philosophy is common. A radix tree, namely the one used by the BSD code for routing purposes, is used to implement the policy engine; a transform table switch is used to make addition of security transformations an easy process; a lightweight kernel-user communication mechanism is used to pass key material and other configuration information from user space to kernel space, and to report asynchronous events such as requests for new keys from the kernel space to a user-level keying daemon; and two distinct ways of intercepting outgoing packets and applying the IPsec transformations to them are employed. The techniques used in our implementations are explained, differences in approaches are analysed, and hints are given to potential future implementers of new transforms.

http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/iel4/5002/14054/00644617.pdf

Implementing IPsec

The Architecture and Implementation of Network Layer Security in UNIX.

The user-interface-level and implementation-level protection mechanisms of the BirliX operating system are described and motivated Descriptions are provided of subject restriction and object protection as complementary user-interface-level mechanisms for enforcing security policies by building small domains of protection Traceability is used as a basis for tracing back violations of policies to answerable humans >

Protection in the BirliX operating system

The increasing use of Internet access networks raises the demand for secure and reliable communication for both users and businesses Traditionally, the aim has been to provide the strongest possible security However, with the demand for low-power computing it has become desirable to develop security mechanisms which efficiently utilize available resources The tradeoff between performance and security plays an important role In general, strong security is added even if there is no attack The implementation of strong and resource demanding security often implies more than a secure system; it may deteriorate the performance of a device with limited resources and pave the way for new threats such as resource exhaustion It is, therefore, unwise to use strong cryptographic algorithms for devices with limited resources in the absence of an adversary It is more efficient to begin with lightweight security, taking further measures when an attack is detected The overall focus of this thesis is on adjustable and lightweight authentication protocols for network access control The thesis studies the performance degradation of strong security using empirical tests on IP security (IPSec) with a visual bottleneck indicator based on the time-discrete fluid flow model and throughput histogram differences The results emphasize the possibility of a Denial of Service (DoS) attack against IPSec itself The redundant authentication performed in a Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) also motivates the development and evaluation of novel lightweight authentication protocols for the link and network layer The developed authentication protocols are resource efficient, per-packet based, and robust in terms of handling packet loss The protocols are further used as part of a hierarchical defense structure, which has been implemented and evaluated in order to mitigate protocol based DoS attacks Finally, this thesis presents the concept of Always Best Security (ABS) and a practical decision making model based on the Analytic Hierarchy Process The model takes a number of factors into consideration, including subjective and objective aspects of security in order to select an adequate authentication level It is a flexible model which formalizes quantitative and qualitative considerations of a defined set of criteria, keeping Quality of Service in mind

/pdf/toward-adjustable-lightweight-authentication-for-network-4imn3qx97c.pdf

Toward Adjustable Lightweight Authentication for Network Access Control

A mechanism for secure communication in large distributed systems is proposed. The mechanism, called Authenticated Datagram Protocol (ADP provides message authentication and optionally, privacy of data. ADP is a host-to-host datagram protocol, positioned below the transport layer; it uses public-key encryptions to establish secure channels between hosts and to authenticate owners, and single-key encryption for communication over a channel and to ensure privacy of the messages. ADP is shown to satisfy the main security requirements of large distributed systems, to provide end-to-end security mechanisms are at a higher level. The results of a trace-driven measurement study of ADP performance show that its throughput and latency are acceptable even within the limitations of today''s technology, provided single-key encryption-decryption can be done in hardware.

A Protocol for Secure Communication in Large Distributed Systems

Performance considerations played an important role in the design of the Authenticated Datagram Protocol (ADP), a subtransport-level host-to-host datagram protocol that contains cryptographic mechanisms for end-to-end authentication and, optionally, privacy of messages. Several performance-motivated features were introduced into ADP. This paper describes the first phase of a measurement-based study of ADP intended to determine the actual effects of each of these features on the protocol''s performance. The experiments were trace-driven, and took place between two workstations in a laboratory setting. The results in every case demonstrated the usefulness of the features in question, but not always for the reasons that motivated their introduction into the design.

/pdf/the-empirical-evaluation-of-a-security-oriented-datagram-1tfuc0qi44.pdf

B. Sartirana

Papers

A Protocol for Secure Communication in Large Distributed Systems

The Empirical Evaluation of a Security-Oriented Datagram Protocol

A Protocol for Secure Communication and Its Performance.