Domain based Internet security policy management

Abstract

As security devices and protocols become widely used on the Internet, the task of managing and processing communication security policies grows steeply in its complexity. This paper presents a scaleable, robust, secure distributed system that can manage communication security policies associated with multiple network domains and resolving the policies -esp. those that specify the use of IP-AH/ESP security protocols -into security requirements for inter-domain communication.Technology innovation includes a formal model for IPsec policy specification and resolution, a platform independent policy specification language and a distributed policy server system. The formal model consists of a hierarchical domain model for IPsec policy enforcement and a lattice model of IPsec policy semantics. The policy specification language enables users to specify IPsec policies using the formal model regardless of the make of the security devices. The policy servers maintain the security policies in a distributed database, and negotiate the security associations for protecting inter-domain communication. Both the policy database and the policy exchange protocol are protected from passive and active attacks. Several UNIX implementations are available for non-commercial uses.

Distributed Privacy-Preserving Policy Reconciliation

“…Wang et al demonstrate that it is possible to structure security policies in such a way that policy reconciliation becomes tractable [8]. Zao et al propose the Security Policy System (SPS) which resolves IPsec security associations between domains of communication [10]. Reconciliation is achieved by intersecting sets of policy values.…”

Performance Evaluation of Privacy-Preserving Policy Reconciliation Protocols

“…The Security Policy System (SPS) was proposed by Zao et al [25]. Its purpose is to resolve IPsec security associa-tions between domains of communication.…”

Security policy reconciliation in distributed computing environments

“…One way to address the inherent complexity of reconciliation is by essentially "flattening" the policy representation, i.e., explicitly enumerating the various choices. For example, the IPsec Security Policy System (SPS) [33] guarantees efficient two-party reconciliation by intersecting fixed and independent sets of policy values. The DCCM system extends this approach to the multi-party environments by providing a Chinese menu reconciliation algorithm [1,2,11].…”

“…As a result, past investigations have largely achieved tractability by limiting the policy representation or by using heuristic algorithms [11,24,26,33]. Such approaches achieve the stated goals, but fail to efficiently capture dependencies between different aspects of a policy.…”