Definition
IPsec is the set of protocols, conventions, and mechanisms that provide security services at the IP layer.
Background
Development of IPsec started at the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) in the early 1990s; the latest round of standards documents came out in 2005, and some development is still going on. Originally, IPsec was intended to address all network security needs. Placing security at the network layer meant that the same protocol could be used by different types of links, but also that the same protocol could be used by most network applications to secure their traffic. It turned out that such a goal was too ambitious. In particular, most Web traffic ended up being secured with a transport-level security protocol, SSL (subsequently TLS). As a result, IPsec is now mostly used for Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) and VPN-like applications, such as remote access.
Theory
IPsec Components
IPsec consists of three distinct components: the traffic protocols(AH and...
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IPsec is still evolving. As of this writing, the core set of standards documents are RFCs 4301-4309. Many other RFCs address individual aspects. The interested reader is referred to the IETF web page (http://www.ietf.org for the authoritative RFC repository.
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© 2011 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC
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Ioannidis, J. (2011). IPsec. In: van Tilborg, H.C.A., Jajodia, S. (eds) Encyclopedia of Cryptography and Security. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-5906-5_269
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-5906-5_269
Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA
Print ISBN: 978-1-4419-5905-8
Online ISBN: 978-1-4419-5906-5
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