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Internetwork Protocol Security (IPsec) In the area of network security technology, ITG staff members took a leadership role in the IETF and vendor community in
design and standardization of internetwork layer security protocols, known as IPsec. IPsec protocols are designed to provide authentication, integrity and confidentiality services to both the current IP
protocol (IPv4) and IPv6. We have concentrated our current efforts on IPv4 because of the high level of interest in fielding internet security technology as quickly as possible. At the request of IETF directors, NIST staff collaborated with key industry partners to develop several specifications for emerging IPsec protocols. NIST staff
co-authored IPsec protocol specifications with: Cisco Systems Inc, Bay Networks, IBM T. J. Watson Research Center, the National Security Agency and Sable Systems.
In addition to providing leadership in IETF standards development, we designed and developed
Cerberus, a leading edge prototype and reference implementation of the latest IPsec specifications. Cerberus serves as a publicly available reference
implementation and a platform for on-going research on advanced issues in IPsec technology. To answer an industry call for more frequent and accessible interoperability testing for emerging commercial
implementations of IPsec technology, we development the NIST IPsec WWW-based Interoperability Tester (
IPsec-WIT). IPsec-WIT is built around the Cerberus prototype and ubiquitous WWW technology and allows implementers to remotely execute
series of interoperability tests against the NIST reference implementation. IPsec-WIT also serves as an experiment in test system architectures and technologies. The novel use of WWW technology allows
IPsec-WIT to provide interoperability testing services anytime and anywhere without requiring any distribution of test system software, or relocation of the systems under test.Work is current underway to expand
Cerberus and IPsec-WIT to support emerging key management protocols and to address IPv6 in addition to IPv4. |
