Applying security to SMDS: a practical example

The need for secure data exchange within the public Switched Multimegabit Data Service (SMDS) environment is addressed by applying the IEEE 802.10 Secure Data Exchange (SDE) protocol. A result of this study has been the implementation of an efficient protection mechanism for information transfer over the public SMDS network, providing security against unauthorized disclosure, data modification, masquerading attacks, and unauthorized access to resources. A security and key management system, consisting of applications and protocols, has also been provided. This has been used for configuring security system attributes such as cryptographic keys, session keys, and security flags, and for the supervision of the SDE protocol and the maintenance of local secure management information bases.<>