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| V-IPSecure |
| Embedded IPsec and IKE |
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V-IPSecure
is a high-performance, embedded implementation
of the IPsec protocol suite providing a high-quality
cryptography-based secure communication channel on
embedded systems. With full support for
flexible policy specifications and complex security
associations, it enables virtual private networks (VPN) to
be easily carved out of public and/or insecure networks.
V-IPSecure also includes a highly interoperable
implementation of the IKE (Internet Key Exchange) protocol
including advanced features such as support for IKEv2,
NAT-T (NAT Traversal), Kerberos and X.509
digital certificate based authentication, in addition to
standard pre-shared keys (PSK) IKE authentication. With
its comprehensive, yet highly modular encryption cipher
and cryptographic checksum library (including AES and SHA
modules) V-IPsecure's designed-for-embedded implementation
make it the IPsec implementation of choice for leading
edge networked embedded devices.
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| Secure Network Layer |
While the TCP/IP
suite of protocols has become very popular among
embedded systems with the proliferation of connected
devices, security is not part of IP’s original design.
Hence any embedded application with security
requirements needs to implement security at the
application, transport, network, or link layer. Placing
security at the network layer has several advantages
when security requirements affect all data going through
the stack. In this case, security of the data in transit
is transparent to the applications which use the network
stack. Further, the security architecture is independent
of the network type or topology to which the embedded
device is connected and encrypted packets can be routed
and switched on any network that supports IP traffic.
V-IPSecure implements a secure network layer (IPsec)
that provides data integrity, origin authentication,
data confidentiality, access control, partial sequence
integrity, and traffic flow confidentiality services for
communications between any two networks or hosts.
Replay-detection as defined by the IPsec standard is
also performed by using sequence numbers combined with
authentication. |
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Customization
Flexibility |
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IPsec configuration via commands or
configuration file. |
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Configurable anti-replay window state. |
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Support for explicit specification of IKE
exchange. |
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Configurable handling of packets not compliant
with a security policy. |
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Designed for hardware acceleration. |
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Available in full-source format. |
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Customization hooks and callouts. |
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Unwanted components can be scaled out. |
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Support for Standards |
V-IPSecure includes a complete set of
standards-based protocol implementations for IPsec-enabling a
standard TCP/IP (V4 or V6) network stack.
Authentication Header (AH) Protocol: attaches a strong
crypto-checksum to packets for a guarantee of authenticity, and
ties data in each packet to a verifiable signature. This allows
communicating parties to verify that data was not modified in
transit (connectionless integrity) and that it genuinely came
from its apparent source. Optionally, it can contain protections
against replay attacks.
Encapsulating Security Payload (ESP) Protocol: encrypts data
using symmetric keys, to secure it against eavesdropping during
transit. It provides a guarantee of confidentiality and
optionally provides for integrity and message authentication as
well.
Internet Key Exchange (IKE): is a powerful and flexible
negotiation protocol that allows communicating parties to
negotiate the methods and parameters of the secure communication
channel, such as the sharing of secret keys between peers.
V-IPSecure seamlessly integrates with any IPv4 or IPv6 based
TCP/IP stack, leveraging features such as PMTU support if the
native stack provides it. |
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Secure Channel Framework |
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The flexibility and power of V-IPSecure
is enhanced by a highly configurable framework for policy
and secure channel management. It allows for a flexible set
of rules to decide when to apply security policies and when
to skip (bypass) them, and provides different levels of
security setup. For example, a secure communication channel
to one network node may consist of a simple authentication
scheme for traffic in both directions, while a highly secure
authentication and encryption scheme may be setup for other
hosts or entire networks. The management control for such
flexibility is provided through a set of user friendly APIs
to access and modify the Security Policy Database (SPD) and
APIs for configuration commands. These APIs may be called
programatically from within a management application, or
manually from a host or target-resident shell during
development. This interface may also be used to pre-share
secret keys for encryption between network nodes. |
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Security Associations |
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A Security Association (SA) is a
one-way association between a sender and a receiver of
security services. Each SA represents one direction of
traffic. The security association separates the key
management and the security mechanisms from each other. Each
V-IPSecure SA defines a set of parameters including the
sequence number for anti-replay service, the protocol mode,
the lifetime of the SA, the path MTU, and other
implementation details. For authentication services in AH or
ESP, and for encryption services in ESP, each SA also
defines parameters such as the choice of cryptographic
algorithm, keys in use, key lifetimes, initial values, etc.
In this way, V-IPSecure makes it possible to bundle SAs to
achieve the desired level of security in a fine-grained
manner. |
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Tunnel and Transport Modes |
Depending on the mechanism of secure IP
packet transmission, V-IPSecure supports two types of SAs, which
define the IPsec protocol mode in use:
Transport mode SA: A security association between two hosts used
to secure the traffic of higher layer protocols.
Tunnel mode SA: A security association modeled similar to an
IP-in-IP tunnel, by encapsulating IP packets into new packets,
which is suitable for secure connections between security
gateways.
Based on application requirements, V-IPSecure may be configured
in either mode or a mix of the two modes for different
connections. ESP in transport mode allows for lower processing
overhead but provides neither authentication nor encryption for
the IP header, making it vulnerable to spoofing. In ESP in
tunnel mode, the original datagram becomes the payload data for
the new ESP packet, hence protection is total if both encryption
and authentication are selected, but has a higher overhead.
Further, tunneling allows for the passing of illegal IP
addresses through a public network, which may be required in
certain applications. Tunneling with the ESP also has the
advantage of hiding the original source and destination
addresses from users on the public network — defeating or at
least reducing the power of traffic analysis attacks. |
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Security Policies |
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Security Policies are a flexible set of
rules specified by network administrators to decide whether to
secure an IP packet, bypass security for it, or discard it,
affording different levels of security setup. For example, an SA
to one network node may consist of a simple authentication
scheme, while a highly secure authentication and encryption
scheme may be setup for other hosts. |
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SA and SP Database APIs |
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The management control for such flexibility
is provided through a set of user friendly APIs to access and
modify the SP Database (SPD) and APIs for configuration
commands. APIs are also included for manually setting up
Security Associations. These APIs may be called
programmatically, or manually from a target-resident shell
during development. This interface may also be used to pre-share
secret keys for encryption between network nodes. |
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Automatic Key Negotiation |
To use any encryption in a network
environment, communicating peers must first exchange keys. While
manually sharing keys is a possibility and is fully supported in
V-IPSecure, it can become intractable as the number of IPsec
hosts increases. For this reason, V-IPSecure includes an
implementation of a mechanism for automatic key negotiation,
called Internet Key Exchange (IKE). IKE is based on the
Diffie-Hellman key exchange and provides mechanisms for
automatic generation and frequent renewal of the crypto keys for
high security without increasing key-lengths which may slow down
the encryption process.
IKE integrates the Internet Security Association and Key
Management Protocol (ISAKMP) framework with an Oakley key
exchange scheme. ISAKMP defines a standardized framework to
support negotiation of security associations (SA), initial
generation of all cryptographic keys, and subsequent refresh of
these keys. Oakley is the key management protocol that is used
within the ISAKMP framework. IKE supports automated negotiation
of security associations, and automated generation and refresh
of cryptographic keys. Authentication in IKE can be achieved
using a variety of mechanisms such as pre-shared keys, Kerberos,
etc. before key exchange begins. When using TeamF1’s AuthAgent
Kerberos for authentication, V-IPSecure’s IKE is completely
interoperable with Microsoft Windows® implementations of IPsec
and IKE using Active Directory as the authentication database. |
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