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Cryptographic Algorithms for the TCP Authentication Option (TCP-AO) The TCP Authentication Option (TCP-AO) relies on security algorithms to provide authentication between two end-points. There are many such algorithms available, and two TCP-AO systems cannot interoperate unless they are using the same algorithms. This document specifies the algorithms and attributes that can be used in TCP-AO’s current manual keying mechanism and provides the interface for future message authentication codes (MACs). Status of This Memo This is an Internet Standards Track document. This document is a product of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). It represents the consensus of the IETF community. It has received public review and has been approved for publication by th

System-on-chip architecture for secure sub-microsecond synchronization systems

213 p.En esta tesis, se pretende abordar los problemas que conlleva la protección cibernética del Precision Time Protocol (PTP). Éste es uno de los protocolos de comunicación más sensibles de entre los considerados por los organismos de estandarización para su aplicación en las futuras Smart Grids o redes eléctricas inteligentes. PTP tiene como misión distribuir una referencia de tiempo desde un dispositivo maestro al resto de dispositivos esclavos, situados dentro de una misma red, de forma muy precisa. El protocolo es altamente vulnerable, ya que introduciendo tan sólo un error de tiempo de un microsegundo, pueden causarse graves problemas en las funciones de protección del equipamiento eléctrico, o incluso detener su funcionamiento. Para ello, se propone una nueva arquitectura System-on-Chip basada en dispositivos reconfigurables, con el objetivo de integrar el protocolo PTP y el conocido estándar de seguridad MACsec para redes Ethernet. La flexibilidad que los modernos dispositivos reconfigurables proporcionan, ha sido aprovechada para el diseño de una arquitectura en la que coexisten procesamiento hardware y software. Los resultados experimentales avalan la viabilidad de utilizar MACsec para proteger la sincronización en entornos industriales, sin degradar la precisión del protocolo

Network security mechanisms and implementations for the next generation reliable fast data transfer protocol - UDT

University of Technology, Sydney. Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology.TCP protocol variants (such as FAST, BiC, XCP, Scalable and High Speed) have demonstrated improved performance in simulation and in several limited network experiments. However, practical use of these protocols is still very limited because of implementation and installation difficulties. Users who require to transfer bulk data (e.g., in Cloud/GRID computing) usually turn to application level solutions where these variants do not fair well. Among protocols considered in the application level are User Datagram Protocol (UDP)-based protocols, such as UDT (UDP-based Data Transport Protocol). UDT is one of the most recently developed new transport protocols with congestion control algorithms. It was developed to support next generation high-speed networks, including wide area optical networks. It is considered a state-of-the-art protocol, addressing infrastructure requirements for transmitting data in high-speed networks. Its development, however, creates new vulnerabilities because like many other protocols, it relies solely on the existing security mechanisms for current protocols such as the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and UDP. Certainly, both UDT and the decades-old TCP/UDP lack a well-thought-out security architecture that addresses problems in today’s networks. In this dissertation, we focus on investigating UDT security issues and offer important contributions to the field of network security. The choice of UDT is significant for several reasons: UDT as a newly designed next generation protocol is considered one of the most promising and fastest protocols ever created that operates on top of the UDP protocol. It is a reliable UDP-based application-level data-transport protocol intended for distributing data intensive applications over wide area high-speed networks. It can transfer data in a highly configurable framework and can accommodate various congestion control algorithms. Its proven success at transferring terabytes of data gathered from outer space across long distances is a testament to its significant commercial promise. In this work, our objective is to examine a range of security methods used on existing mature protocols such as TCP and UDP and evaluate their viability for UDT. We highlight the security limitations of UDT and determine the threshold of feasible security schemes within the constraints under which UDT was designed and developed. Subsequently, we provide ways of securing applications and traffic using UDT protocol, and offer recommendations for securing UDT. We create security mechanisms tailored for UDT and propose a new security architecture that can assist network designers, security investigators, and users who want to incorporate security when implementing UDT across wide area networks. We then conduct practical experiments on UDT using our security mechanisms and explore the use of other existing security mechanisms used on TCP/UDP for UDT. To analyse the security mechanisms, we carry out a formal proof of correctness to assist us in determining their applicability by using Protocol Composition Logic (PCL). This approach is modular, comprising a separate proof of each protocol section and providing insight into the network environment in which each section can be reliably employed. Moreover, the proof holds for a variety of failure recovery strategies and other implementation and configuration options. We derive our technique from the PCL on TLS and Kerberos in the literature. We maintain, however, the novelty of our work for UDT particularly our newly developed mechanisms such as UDT-AO, UDT-DTLS, UDT-Kerberos (GSS-API) specifically for UDT, which all now form our proposed UDT security architecture. We further analyse this architecture using rewrite systems and automata. We outline and use symbolic analysis approach to effectively verify our proposed architecture. This approach allows dataflow replication in the implementation of selected mechanisms that are integrated into the proposed architecture. We consider this approach effective by utilising the properties of the rewrite systems to represent specific flows within the architecture to present a theoretical and reliable method to perform the analysis. We introduce abstract representations of the components that compose the architecture and conduct our investigation, through structural, semantics and query analyses. The result of this work, which is first in the literature, is a more robust theoretical and practical representation of a security architecture of UDT, viable to work with other high speed network protocols

System-on-chip architecture for secure sub-microsecond synchronization systems

213 p.En esta tesis, se pretende abordar los problemas que conlleva la protección cibernética del Precision Time Protocol (PTP). Éste es uno de los protocolos de comunicación más sensibles de entre los considerados por los organismos de estandarización para su aplicación en las futuras Smart Grids o redes eléctricas inteligentes. PTP tiene como misión distribuir una referencia de tiempo desde un dispositivo maestro al resto de dispositivos esclavos, situados dentro de una misma red, de forma muy precisa. El protocolo es altamente vulnerable, ya que introduciendo tan sólo un error de tiempo de un microsegundo, pueden causarse graves problemas en las funciones de protección del equipamiento eléctrico, o incluso detener su funcionamiento. Para ello, se propone una nueva arquitectura System-on-Chip basada en dispositivos reconfigurables, con el objetivo de integrar el protocolo PTP y el conocido estándar de seguridad MACsec para redes Ethernet. La flexibilidad que los modernos dispositivos reconfigurables proporcionan, ha sido aprovechada para el diseño de una arquitectura en la que coexisten procesamiento hardware y software. Los resultados experimentales avalan la viabilidad de utilizar MACsec para proteger la sincronización en entornos industriales, sin degradar la precisión del protocolo

System-on-chip architecture for secure sub-microsecond synchronization systems

213 p.En esta tesis, se pretende abordar los problemas que conlleva la protección cibernética del Precision Time Protocol (PTP). Éste es uno de los protocolos de comunicación más sensibles de entre los considerados por los organismos de estandarización para su aplicación en las futuras Smart Grids o redes eléctricas inteligentes. PTP tiene como misión distribuir una referencia de tiempo desde un dispositivo maestro al resto de dispositivos esclavos, situados dentro de una misma red, de forma muy precisa. El protocolo es altamente vulnerable, ya que introduciendo tan sólo un error de tiempo de un microsegundo, pueden causarse graves problemas en las funciones de protección del equipamiento eléctrico, o incluso detener su funcionamiento. Para ello, se propone una nueva arquitectura System-on-Chip basada en dispositivos reconfigurables, con el objetivo de integrar el protocolo PTP y el conocido estándar de seguridad MACsec para redes Ethernet. La flexibilidad que los modernos dispositivos reconfigurables proporcionan, ha sido aprovechada para el diseño de una arquitectura en la que coexisten procesamiento hardware y software. Los resultados experimentales avalan la viabilidad de utilizar MACsec para proteger la sincronización en entornos industriales, sin degradar la precisión del protocolo

An Architecture for the AES-GCM Security Standard

The forth recommendation of symmetric block cipher mode of operation SP800-38D, Galois/Counter Mode of Operation (GCM) was developed by David A McGrew and John Viega. GCM uses an approved symmetric key block cipher with a block size of 128 bits and a universal hashing over a binary Galois field to provide confidentiality and authentication. It is built specifically to support very high data rates as it can take advantage of pipelining and parallel processing techniques. Before GCM, SP800-38A only provided confidentiality and SP800-38B provided authentication. SP800-38C provided confidentiality using the counter mode and authentication. However the authentication technique in SP800-38C was not parallelizable and slowed down the throughput of the cipher. Hence, none of these three recommendations were suitable for high speed network and computer system applications. With the advent of GCM, authenticated encryption at data rates of several Gbps is now practical, permitting high grade encryption and authentication on systems which previously could not be fully protected. However there have not yet been any published results on actual architectures for this standard based on FPGA technology. This thesis presents a fully pipelined and parallelized hardware architecture for AES-GCM which is GCM running under symmetric block cipher AES on a FPGA multi-core platform corresponding to the IPsec ESP data flow. The results from this thesis show that the round transformations of confidentiality and hash operations of authentication in AES-GCM can cooperate very efficiently within this pipelined architecture. Furthermore, this AES-GCM hardware architecture never unnecessarily stalls data pipelines. For the first time this thesis provides a complete FPGA-based high speed architecture for the AES-GCM standard, suitable for high speed embedded applications

Security issues in Internet of Things

The main idea behind the concept of the Internet of Things (IoT) is to connect all kinds of everyday objects, thus enabling them to communicate to each other and enabling people to communicate to them. IoT is an extensive concept that encompasses a wide range of technologies and applications. This document gives an introduction to what the IoT is, its fundamental characteristics and the enabling technologies that are currently being used. However, the technologies for the IoT are still evolving and maturing, leading to major challenges that need to be solved for a successful deployment of the IoT. Security is one of the most significant ones. Security issues may represent the greatest obstacle to general acceptance of the IoT. This document presents an assessment of the IoT security goals, its threats and the security requirements to achieve the goals. A survey on a representative set of already deployed IoT technologies is done to assess the current state of the art with regards to security. For each solution, a description of its functionality, its security options and the issues found in the literature is given. Finally, the common issues are identified and a set of future solutions are given.La idea principal detrás del concepto de Internet de las cosas (IoT) es conectar todo tipo de objetos cotidianos, para permitir comunicarse entre sí y que personas se comuniquen con ellos. IoT es un amplio concepto que abarca una extensa gama de tecnologías y aplicaciones. Este documento da una introducción a lo que es el IoT, sus características fundamentales y las tecnologías que se están utilizando actualmente. Sin embargo, las tecnologías usadas en el IoT todavía están en evolución y madurando, dando lugar a grandes desafíos que deben resolverse para un despliegue exitoso del IoT. La seguridad es uno de las más significativos. Los problemas de seguridad pueden representar el mayor obstáculo para la aceptación general del IoT. Este documento presenta una evaluación de los objetivos de seguridad en el IoT, sus amenazas y los requisitos necesarios para alcanzar dichos objetivos. Se realiza un estudio sobre un conjunto representativo de tecnologías IoT en uso para evaluar su estado actual respecto a la seguridad. Para cada solución, se da una descripción de su funcionalidad, sus protecciones y los problemas encontrados. Finalmente, se identifican los problemas comunes y se dan un conjunto de soluciones futuras.La idea principal darrera del concepte d'Internet de les coses (IoT) és connectar tot tipus d'objectes quotidians, per permetre comunicar-se entre sí i que les persones es comuniquin amb ells. IoT és un ampli concepte que engloba una extensa gamma de tecnologies i aplicacions. Aquest document dona una introducció al que és el IoT, les seves característiques fonamentals i les tecnologies que s'estan utilitzant actualment. No obstant, les tecnologies utilitzades en el IoT encara estan evolucionant i madurant, donant lloc a grans reptes que s'han de resoldre per a un desplegament exitós del IoT. La seguretat és un dels reptes més significatius. Els problemes de seguretat poden representar el major obstacle per l'acceptació general de l'IoT. Aquest document presenta una avaluació dels objectius de seguretat en el Iot, les seves amenaces i els requisits necessaris per assolir aquests objectius. Es realitza un estudi sobre un conjunt representatiu de tecnologies IoT en ús per avaluar el seu estat actual respecte a la seguretat. Per cada solució, es dona una descripció de la seva funcionalitat, les seves proteccions i els problemes trobats. Finalment, s'identifiquen els problemes comuns i es donen un conjunt de solucions futures

Undetectable Communication: The Online Social Networks Case

Online Social Networks (OSNs) provide users with an easy way to share content, communicate, and update others about their activities. They also play an increasingly fundamental role in coordinating and amplifying grassroots movements, as demonstrated by recent uprisings in, e.g., Egypt, Tunisia, and Turkey. At the same time, OSNs have become primary targets of tracking, profiling, as well as censorship and surveillance. In this paper, we explore the notion of undetectable communication in OSNs and introduce formal definitions, alongside system and adversarial models, that complement better understood notions of anonymity and confidentiality. We present a novel scheme for secure covert information sharing that, to the best of our knowledge, is the first to achieve undetectable communication in OSNs. We demonstrate, via an open-source prototype, that additional costs are tolerably low

Control and Non-Payload Communications (CNPC) Prototype Radio Validation Flight Test Report

This report provides an overview and results from the unmanned aircraft (UA) Control and Non-Payload Communications (CNPC) Generation 5 prototype radio validation flight test campaign. The radios used in the test campaign were developed under cooperative agreement NNC11AA01A between the NASA Glenn Research Center and Rockwell Collins, Inc., of Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Measurement results are presented for flight tests over hilly terrain, open water, and urban landscape, utilizing radio sets installed into a NASA aircraft and ground stations. Signal strength and frame loss measurement data are analyzed relative to time and aircraft position, specifically addressing the impact of line-of-sight terrain obstructions on CNPC data flow. Both the radio and flight test system are described