Improved IPsec performance utilizing transport-layer-aware compression architecture

• Published in: Security and communication networks Vol. 4; no. 9; pp. 1063 - 1074
• Main Authors: Li, Jung-Shian, Hsieh, Che-Jen, Chang, Chih-Ying, Chilamkurti, Naveen
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Chichester, UK John Wiley & Sons, Ltd 01.09.2011
• Subjects: Architecture; Compressing; compression; Computer information security; Efficient Secure Pipe; encryption; Internet; Internet Security; IP (Internet Protocol); IPsec; Networks; TCP (protocol); Virtual private networks
• ISSN: 1939-0114; 1939-0122; 1939-0122
• DOI: 10.1002/sec.257

With the rapid growth of applications in Internet communication, the security for transmitting information on public network has become a fundamental issue. The Internet Protocol Security (IPsec) standard is developed by Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) to provide the security services at the IP layer. IPSec solutions invariably result in a large‐packet size and a long processing time. Accordingly, this paper proposes new compression architecture, designated as Efficient Secure Pipe (ES_PIPE), to improve both the security and the performance of IPv6 networks. In contrast to traditional IPsec compression schemes, ES_PIPE provides a transport‐layer‐aware compression capability for different types of packets (e.g., TCP or UDP/RTP packets). The experimental results show that the proposed scheme reduces 20–30% transmission time compared to IPsec. Furthermore, ES_PIPE scheme yields about 20% improvement in the efficiency of the encryption and decryption processes. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. IPsec is the most commonly used to improve network security. However it results in a large packet size and a long processing time. This paper proposes new compression architecture, designated as Efficient Secure Pipe (ES_PIPE), to improve both the security and the performance of IPv6 networks. The ES_PIPE provides a transport‐layer‐aware compression capability for different types of packets. The experimental results show that the proposed scheme provides a more efficient compression performance than IPsec.