How can trust management enhance the security of Internet Protocol Security (IPsec)? This paper presents an efficient policy management scheme for IPsec, leveraging the principles of trust management to improve the handling of protected traffic at security endpoints. IPsec provides network-layer confidentiality and authentication of Internet traffic, but does not cover how this traffic should be handled at security end points. A compliance check is integrated into the IPsec architecture, testing packet filters proposed during the creation of new security associations against local security policies. These policies are based on credentials provided by the peer host. The system leverages the KeyNote trust-management language, and an implementation allows interoperability with a variety of UNIX-based IPsec implementations. The research presents a practical and portable implementation of this design, illustrating the enhanced security and flexibility achieved through trust management within IPsec. This allows sophisticated specification of credentials in addition to allowing efficient packet filtering for the actual IPsec traffic.
Published in ACM Transactions on Information and System Security, this article fits squarely within the journal's scope. The research explores security enhancements to IPsec, a core protocol for secure network communication, aligning with the journal's emphasis on advancements in information and system security.