Retrofitting security into Internet infrastructure protocols

Abstract

There are many different protocols that are critical to the communication of data in the Internet but are not readily visible to the end-users. These infrastructure protocols include the Domain Name System protocol, the various routing protocols, and the Simple Network Management Protocol. The infrastructure protocols were developed early in the history of the Internet, when the risk environment was much more benign, and are not protected against failure or attack. This has left the Internet vulnerable to failure resulting from attack on its infrastructure. Under DARPA sponsorship in the information survivability program, Network Associates has designed and implemented enhancements to critical infrastructure protocols, so as to enable the robust operation of the Internet. This paper describes our work on security enhancements to the domain name system, the Open Shortest Path First (OSPF) routing protocol, the Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) routing protocol, and the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP).