The optical burst switching (OBS) is an emergent result to the technology concern that could achieve a feasible network in future. They are endowed with the ability to meet the bandwidth requirement of those applications that require intensive bandwidth. There are more domains opening up in the OBS that evidently shows their advantages and their capability to face the future network traffic. However, the concept of OBS is still far from perfection facing issues in case of security threat. The transfer of optical switching paradigm to optical burst switching faces serious downfall in the fields of burst aggregation, routing, authentication, dispute resolution, and quality of service (QoS). This paper deals with employing RC4 (stream cipher) to encrypt and decrypt bursts thereby ensuring the confidentiality of the burst. Although the use of AES algorithm has already been proposed for the same issue, by contrasting the two algorithms under the parameters of burst encryption and decryption time, end-to-end delay, it was found that RC4 provided better results. This paper looks to provide a better solution for the confidentiality of the burst in OBS networks.
The optical burst switching (OBS) is an emergent result to the technology concern that could achieve a feasible network in future. They are endowed with the ability to meet the bandwidth requirement of those applications that require intensive bandwidth. There are more domains opening up in the OBS that evidently shows their advantages and their capability to face the future network traffic. However, the concept of OBS is still far from perfection facing issues in case of security threat. The transfer of optical switching paradigm to optical burst switching faces serious downfall in the fields of burst aggregation, routing, authentication, dispute resolution, and quality of service (QoS). This paper deals with employing RC4 (stream cipher) to encrypt and decrypt bursts thereby ensuring the confidentiality of the burst. Although the use of AES algorithm has already been proposed for the same issue, by contrasting the two algorithms under the parameters of burst encryption and decryption time, end-to-end delay, it was found that RC4 provided better results. This paper looks to provide a better solution for the confidentiality of the burst in OBS networks.
Abstract The field of optical transmission has undergone numerous advancements and is still being researched mainly due to the fact that optical data transmission can be done at enormous speeds. It is quite evident that people prefer optical communication when it comes to large amount of data involving its transmission. The concept of switching in networks has matured enormously with several researches, architecture to implement and methods starting with Optical circuit switching to Optical Burst Switching. Optical burst switching is regarded as viable solution for switching bursts over networks but has several security vulnerabilities. However, this work exploited the security issues associated with Optical Burst Switching with respect to integrity of burst. This proposed Quantum Key based Secure Hash Algorithm (QKBSHA-512) with enhanced compression function design provides better avalanche effect over the conventional integrity algorithms.
IntroductionSecurity is an increasingly growing concern for network communications and video is an emerging segment of network traffic that uses large amounts of bandwidth.Streaming video, vs. downloading a video for later viewing, requires a continuous, high data rate.The data rate will vary depending on the quality of the video.Video surveillance is a streaming video application that in addition may require securing the data stream to prevent others from viewing it as well as prevent any tampering of that video stream.There are two parts to secure communication, key distribution and ciphers.A cipher requires a secret key that is used to encrypt data (plaintext), transforming it into an unreadable form (ciphertext) and then to decrypt it back into its original form.Key distribution is the method used to exchange the secret key between the desired end users and no one else.Current block ciphers are relatively slow compared to existing bandwidth because they require a substantial amount of processing that must compete for CPU cycles with the video encoding and compression processing.Frequently changing keys is thought to increase security, but the public key exchange method requires even more processing than the cipher.Cipher and key exchange processing can be off-loaded from the CPU, when the communication end point is the other end of the link, by using dedicated hardware called a link encryptor.Current classical security algorithms are based on the perceived computational complexity of certain mathematical functions and have not been proved secure.The public key algorithm is at risk from future quantum computers, whereas block ciphers are only weakened and an easy fix is to double the length of the key.Both are constantly at risk from a potential break through algorithm.Communications channels that exploit properties unique to quantum systems have been shown to enable functionality that cannot be achieved by classical means.If a high level of security is deemed necessary for the video stream, one might consider the use of a One-Time-Pad cipher [Wikipedia 2010], the only provably secure cipher, along with Quantum Key Distribution (QKD), also a provably secure method of exchanging the secret keys used by a cipher.QKD is a protocol based on the quantum laws of physics and is provably information theoretically secure to accomplish key distribution [Gisin, et al., 2002].QKD keys, when used with a One-Time-Pad cipher, can provide secure communications.A One-Time-Pad cipher algorithm performs an Exclusive OR (XOR) on a random secret key and the message.This is a simple operation that incurs little overhead compared to the more common www.intechopen.comVideo Surveillance 74 computationally intensive ciphers, but it requires the key to be the same length as the message and discarded once used.For video, that requires a continuous stream of random secret keys, which is one of the features of QKD.Because of that feature, QKD is considered to have a long-term security perspective because of its "perfect forward security" attribute.The term perfect forward security means that any compromised keys cannot be used to determine other keys, either past or future.Since QKD keys are random strings and are not produced by a mathematical function, any compromised keys cannot be used to determine other keys.QKD is still a technology under development even though a few commercial systems are available [Ouellette, 2004].Some of the limitations of QKD are speed, distance and cost.Distance is a major concern, since without a break-through in developing a quantum repeater the quantum signal is limited to a few 100 km at best.Amplification is not possible since the quantum "no cloning law" specifies that a quantum state cannot be copied.If trusted, intermediate nodes are acceptable, then longer distances are possible via a multihop propagation of the key over multiple QKD links.This is not always acceptable and for these situations a quantum repeater would be required.It is currently under development, but none have yet been demonstrated.Speed, the ability to produce secure keys at a high rate is important to cope with the large amount of communication traffic over high-speed connections and hardware implementations that off-load the CPU have been demonstrated.Cost is an ever-present constraint and designs that use lower cost components and share rather than replicate components reduce the cost.In some cases, designs that share rather than duplicate components help to reduce concerns of side channel attacks upon engineered components (vs theoretical ones), but usually at the detriment of speed.This chapter includes a short summary of the BB84 QKD protocol and its various stages.We then present a section on the configuration of a QKD system targeted for short distances and how a number of innovations lowered the cost and evolved that core design for longer distance communication and current infrastructure use.Another section will discuss hardware support for the data handling necessary to implement high-speed QKD.Extending QKD point-to-point systems to form QKD networks makes it even more attractive for applications such as video surveillance and we will discuss early networking demonstrations.In closing, we will discuss initial QKD standards efforts currently being conducted How to referenceIn order to correctly reference this scholarly work, feel free to copy and paste the following:
Abstract The evolution of quantum computers is considered a serious threat to public‐key cryptosystems (e.g. RSA, ECDSA, ECDH, etc.). This is indeed a big concern for security of the Internet and other data communication and storage systems. The reason is that public‐key schemes are the basis in the generation of shared symmetric keys that are used to perform data encryption/decryption in communication and data transfer protocols. One possible approach to address this issue is to use Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) (instead of public‐key schemes) for the ultra‐secure generation of symmetric keys. QKD is a physical layer technology that allows two parties (equipped with optical communication interfaces) to generate secure random keys over a quantum channel that is immune to eavesdropping threats. The keys are then used by symmetric encryption schemes (e.g. AES) to encrypt data over classical channels. This allows us to have data encryption/decryption without needing a public‐key scheme. However, due to its inherent characteristics, the implementation of QKD has mostly been considered in particular contexts only (e.g. backhaul networks, point‐to‐point connections, optical networks, etc.). This indeed limits the utility of QKD technology to only some particular applications while it has the potential to be used in a wide range of used cases. Motivated by this (increasing the usability of QKD technology), in this study, the authors propose a model that enables SDN‐based networks to utilise QKD technology and provide QKD security service (i.e., random key generation service) to network applications and security protocols in a practical and efficient way. In the proposed approach, secret keys are generated based on the distribution of quantum entanglement between QKD nodes deployed in the network. The significant characteristic of our proposed model is that it does not rely on quantum repeaters to operate. This also improves the efficiency of the employed QKD mechanisms in terms of the key generation rate.
Quantum secure communication technology, grounded in the principles of quantum mechanics, has revolutionized traditional cryptographic methods, which predominantly rely on mathematical algorithms and logical transformations. Quantum key distribution (QKD) facilitates the secure sharing of symmetric keys between legitimate parties, ensuring the integrity and confidentiality of information in communication channels. Among various QKD schemes, continuous variable quantum key distribution (CV-QKD) has emerged as a viable alternative to the more established discrete variable quantum key distribution (DV-QKD). CV-QKD boasts several advantages, including straightforward deployment, reduced operational costs, and stable signal quality, positioning it as a significant component of the quantum communication landscape. Quantum noise stream cipher (QNSC) represents a technique that employs redundant data streams to encrypt plaintext. Notably, QNSC shares structural similarities with the optical path used in quantum key distribution, allowing for compatibility with existing QKD infrastructure. Furthermore, the keys generated through quantum key distribution ensure absolute security, enabling them to substitute the data streams produced by pseudo-random sequences traditionally used in classical encryption schemes. This substitution enhances the overall security framework of the quantum noise stream encryption approach. The quantum access network (QAN) extends quantum key distribution capabilities from point-to-point connections to point-to-multipoint configurations, thereby becoming an essential component of contemporary network architectures. By interlinking multiple end users with a network backbone, quantum access networks can seamlessly integrate with quantum key distribution protocols. This integration offers a cost-effective and scalable solution for user access to the network. Extensive experimental verifications have demonstrated the viability of downstream access networks, indicating that the merging of quantum access network structures with quantum stream encryption technologies can yield a comprehensive quantum experimental platform. On this platform, security keys are derived through quantum key distribution, which subsequently facilitates the encryption of plaintext information. Notably, experimental validations involving eight users have been successfully executed on this platform, underscoring its practical applicability and effectiveness.
Optical network security is attracting increasing research interest. Currently, software defined optical network (SDON) has been proposed to increase network intelligence, which is gradually moving towards industrialization. However, new threats are emerging, e.g., control messages transferred via the control channels are vulnerable to eavesdropping and interception. Data encryption is an effective way to enhance the security of connection as well as control messages transferred in SDON. Noticeably, quantum key distribution (QKD) is being considered as a secure mechanism to provision keys for confidential data encryption, which is a potential technique to protect communications from security attacks in SDONs. How to utilize QKD to enhance the SDON security is emerging as a new issue. This paper proposes a novel QKD-enabled SDON architecture, and discusses some open issues and challenges such as resource allocation, security level, trusted repeater node placement and resiliency under such an architecture. Moreover, this paper also proposes an algorithmic solution to resource allocation issue and describes some illustrative simulation results.