Toward an internet service provider (ISP) centric security

Abstract

Individual users, businesses, and governments have become functionally dependent on the Internet's connectivity to interact at the most basic levels of social and economic intercourse. Yet self-propagating worms and distributed denial of service attacks have demonstrated that disruption of the Internet infrastructure can be quickly achieved despite the vast knowledge of vulnerabilities and readily available subscriber-based countermeasures. In part, this condition is made possible because networks continue to operate under an obsolete subscriber-centric security paradigm that is based on all end users being trusted to act appropriately. This thesis develops the idea of an Internet Service Provider (ISP)- centric security approach by examining the types, roles, security mechanisms, and operational precepts of ISP's to illustrate their functional control within the infrastructure. Denial of service and worm attacks are detailed to provide the context for an emerging set of conditions that forms the basis of the requirement for the ISP approach. This paper concludes by examining four enabling technologies currently available that, used uniformly, provide ISPs with the framework to implement Internet based security that can serve to enhance the layered defense model and invoke the tenants of best practices.