Design and implementation of TELNET protocol supporting security functionalities

Abstract

TELNET is vulnerable to network attack because it was designed without considering security. SSL/TLS and SSH are used to solve this problem. However it needs additional secure protocol and has no backward compatibility with existing TELNET in this way. In this paper, we have suggested STELNET(Secured Telnet) which supports security functionalities internally so that has a backward compatibility. STELNET supports a backward compatibility with existing TELNET through option negotiation. On STELNET, A client authenticates server by a certificate or digital signature generated by using ECDSA. After server is authenticated, two hosts generate a session key by ECDH algorithm. And then by using the key, they encrypt data with AES and generate HMAC by using SHA-256. After then they transmit encrypted data and generated HMAC. In conclusion, STELNET which has a backward compatibility with existing TELNET defends MITM(Man-In-The-Middle) attack and supports security functionalities ensuring confidentiality and integrity of transmitted data.