Prototype implementation of fast and secure traceability service over public networks

Internet communication message protocol (ICMP)-based traceability methods are widely used to trace packets over the Internet; however, in their attacks, adversaries likewise use ICMP packets. Furthermore, the lack of security in ICMP-based traceability results in failures for many current traceability methods. Moreover, current routers are unable to provide extended services to Internet users and applications. To address this need, our laboratory has introduced the service-oriented router (SoR). SoR is middleware that can be implemented on a Cisco AXP and Juniper JunosV App Engine. In this paper, we propose a secure method of providing packet traceability over public networks using SoR features. We implemented a secure packet traceability service prototype on the ns-3 simulator. The test results conclude that there is a maximum additional cost of 48.69 and 123.91 μs of processing overhead per packet in each hop when the proposed secured traceability service is used with a 128-bit key space in AES-GCM and AES-CTR modes, respectively. Moreover, for 256-bit key spaces, AES-GCM and AES-CTR modes consumed additional 47.18 and 123.25 μs, respectively, over the plain traceability. Yet, from the evaluations on the test bed topology, it clearly shown that the proposed method was 79% faster than the conventional trace route method in providing the secured end-to-end traceability.