Abstract

The use of networks is growing continuously, constantly increasing the vulnerability of the computer systems that use them. Current solutions for network security, such as firewalls, cannot support sophisticated trust relationships with external entities and lack a comprehensive approach to security. Research in security has shown the usefulness of mandatory security mechanisms for supporting sophisticated trust relationships and secure endpoints in addition to secure communication channels. Other efforts at incorporating mandatory security mechanisms into the network stack have a limited notion of access control policies. This work deals with the design and implementation of a more comprehensive and flexible network security architecture that enforces a mandatory access control policy on network-related operations and a mandatory cryptographic policy on network traffic. The implementation involves modifying the FreeBSD TCP/IP stack within the Flask secure operating system. Access cont...

Citations