A Policy Based Approach to Securing Egress Secure Socket Layer Connections on Local Area Networks
Abstract
Common network environments allow users a wide variety of protocols and applications to accomplish their job functions as well as day-to-day communications. One such example is the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) protocol. SSL provides client and server authentication, data confidentiality and data integrity. SSL has been successfully employed in conjunction with a number of legacy protocols in order to ensure additional security. While many of these services are a requirement to complete basic mission-critical tasks, they can be manipulated in order to produce network activities that would normally be prohibited. SSL can be used to tunnel other applications or protocols and can therefore hide traffic and activity that would normally never be allowed out of a network. Traffic utilizing SSL is encrypted and cannot be screened by traditional methods of network defence for unauthorized activities. There is an increasing need to monitor and regulate all traffic in networked environments. Due to the confidentiality provided, SSL traffic offers a unique challenge to these requirements. We explore a policy-based interception solution that allows additional controls to be placed on egress SSL traffic. This solution will provide the ability to detect and prevent SSL misuse.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Nov 01, 2004
- Accession Number
- ADA447305
Entities
People
- David Nadwodny
- James Rowell
- Joseph Mathews
Organizations
- United States Naval Research Laboratory