Security-Oriented Network Architecture

Abstract

Internet benefits societies by constantly connecting devices and transmitting data across the world. However, due to the lack of architectural built-in security, the pervasive network attacks faced by the entire information technology are considered to be unending and inevitable. As Internet evolves, security issues are regularly fixed according to a patch-like strategy. Nevertheless, the patch-like strategy generally results in arms races and passive situations, leaving an endless lag in both existing and emerging attacking surface. In this paper, we present NAIS (Network Architecture with Intrinsic Security)—a network architecture towards trustworthiness and security. By solving stubborn security issues like IP spoofing, MITM (man-in-the-middle) attacks, and DDoS (distributed denial of service) attacks at architectural level, NAIS is envisioned to provide the most secure end-to-end communication in the network layer. This paper first presents a comprehensive analysis of network security at Internet range. Then, the system design of NAIS is elaborated with particular design philosophies and four security techniques. Such philosophies and techniques intertwine internally and contribute to a communication environment with authenticity, privacy, accountability, confidentiality, integrity, and availability. Finally, we evaluate the security functionalities on the packet forwarding performance, demonstrating that NAIS can efficiently provide security and trustworthiness in Internet end-to-end communication.