A Primer on Internet Protocol Security

Security is one of the top issues of the world right now. Be it our security or the security of our assets. It used to be in the past that we used to worry about the security of materialistic stuff. It is now the time we are living in the digitalized world, and in this world, we care more about essence we cannot touch. It includes all the things we have over the internet such as our identification data, our credit card data, and many other types of data that we either saved over the cloud or uploaded on social media, just for fun.

If we dive a little deeper into the pool of security, there is a lot more to explore, such as network security. Network security is a broader term that refers to all the practices and protocols an organization puts together to secure its IT infrastructure and the network. It includes everything such as hardware, software, networks, applications, and every other thing. There should always be effective management of your IT system that means everything that is somehow connected to the internet is reliable and secure. All the reputation of the organization depends on how you handle your customers and their data, so it holds a great value by ever means.

There are some security measures and practices that every small and big business should implement in today's time. There should always be a password-protected network, computer, or any other device, in simple terms, there should be layers of security in everything that we use. There should always be firewall settings to block malicious stuff. You should always have a spy-ware antivirus installed in the system that should be up to date. All the important work files and backup files should be saved on cloud storage. That cloud storage should belong to a reliable cloud service provider company that ensures data security. Internet Protocol Security is another big issue in the world of information technology, let's look further into it.

Internet Protocol Security

Internet protocol security, also known as IPSec, is the architecture that provides security services to internet protocol traffic. It is because of this architecture that all the communication over the internet protocol networks is uninterruptable and secure. The framework of IPsec is based on cryptographic algorithms that are responsible for encryption, decryption, and authentication of data for security purposes. We can deploy these security protocols to the existing networks as they require no change in the system.

If we have a look at internet security protocol, it has two mechanisms to ensure the security of internet protocol data. One is encapsulating security payload, in which we encrypt all the data in IP packets. And the other one is authentication header protocol, in which we sign all the IP packets digitally. There is another protocol with the name of an internet key exchange that manages all the cryptographic keys.

Basic Concepts of IPSec

Internet protocol security has some basic concepts on which IPSec depends, they are following.

Authentication:

It is a security mechanism in which both parties, the sender and the receiver knows the state of data. It is a way to ensure that data is not changed, and it is the same as it was sent.

Integrity:

Data integrity is an essential aspect of IPSec that ensures that the data is the same at the start at the sender's end and the receiver's end.

Confidentiality:

There is always a mechanism to secure the data during the transmission. By doing this, we can ensure the confidentiality of the data, which is an essential thing.

Security Association:

It is an agreement between sending and receiving parties to ensure the security of data. In this agreement, they agree on different security mechanisms to secure the transmitting data.

How can we Achieve IP Security?

Talking about Internet protocol security, it is an achievable task. For now, we have two headers of IP security that are IP Authentication Header and IP Encapsulating Security Payload header. The Authentication header can be a very beneficial option for providing security to the IP data if confidentiality is not an issue. We can implement it in the host to host, host to the gateway, and gateway to gateway. But there is a recommendation of implementing it in host to host because security gateway ensures the security of the trusted hosts, but it will be like this until the trusted host becomes untrusted. As we know, there is a risk of an attack until and unless the complete transmission line is under-security.

When talking about the IP Encapsulating Security Payload header, it provides almost everything, from integrity to authentication to confidentiality for the IP data. In the ESP header, there is host to host, host to the gateway, and gateway to gateway implementation is available. For virtual private networks, the gateway to gateway ESP header implementation is critical to provide the security to the IP data across all the untrusted environments.

Advantages and Disadvantages of IPSec

We all know how important data security is when it comes to the internet. Whether it is the website access or simple email communication, security is always the biggest concern. Connecting through a private network is a preferred option for an easy security escape. A virtual private network is usually based on protocols like IPSec, OpenVPN, PPTP, and there are many others.

As we know, the two essential roles of IPSec are data encryption and authentication. Talking about the modes of operation in IPSec, there are two of them. In the former one, encryption of data between two hosts takes place. There will be encryption for only the data packet and not for the IP header. Whereas in the latter one, there are virtual tunnels created by IPSec between the subnets, and in this, there is the encryption of the IP header and the data packet.

Advantages of Internet Protocol Security

When we talk about the advantages of IPSec, there are many. We are mentioning some of them here.

• Network Layer Security

The operation of IPSec is all based on layer 3, which means there is no effect of IPSec on the higher layer. Transparency is the biggest advantage that IPSec offers. As it has its operation based on the network layer, we can monitor all the traffic that passes through the network, that is why VPNs based on IPSec are the best ones.

• Confidentiality

When it comes to the security of the data, confidentiality is something we cannot neglect. There are public keys for every data exchange that takes place, to provide confidentiality to data. As a result of this key process, there is a surety of safe data transfer, and it also helps in the verification of the host. It is almost impossible to forge with the data packs when it has IPSec implemented on it.

• No Dependability on Application

As we have discussed earlier, IPSec operates on the network layer, so there is no dependability on the applications of any kind. IPSec depends on the operating system as it needs modification in that only. Due to this, all the VPNs that are based on IPSec also do not depend on applications. Whereas, if we look at SSL VPNs, they depend on the application. All about internet security and IPSec can simply be learned by doing a CCNA security certification.

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Disadvantages of IPSec

With pros, there are cons about everything. As we have seen the advantages of IPSec, there are some disadvantages as well. Let us look at those countable disadvantages.

• Wide Access Range

It does not appear right, but a wide access range is one of the most significant disadvantages that IPSec has. Due to the wide access availability, unauthorize devices can have access to our network as well as the authorized ones.

• Compatibility Issues

There can be compatibility issues in IPSec if all the standards are not followed properly. It is necessary to follow all the measures to avoid such a situation. And if you are on a VPN based on IPSec, you cannot connect to any other network, as there are some firewall restrictions.

• CPU Overhead

High CPU usage is a common disadvantage in the IPSec. As it involves processed like encryption and decryption of all the data, it requires high processing power. Even when the data size is small, it has a high CPU usage that makes network engineers stay away from it until there is a need.

• Broken Algorithms

There is a big problem in IPSec that is broken algorithms. These algorithms can become the cause of cyber hacks. It used to be the biggest disadvantage, but luckily there are new algorithms available now that can overcome those vulnerabilities. If you want to ensure the security of data, always try to use the latest algorithms.

Here we go with the complete primer on the Internet Protocol Security. Anyone can have a clear idea about IPSec just by skimming through this post. That’s all from us.