ROSA: Realistic Open Security Architecture for Active Networks

Active network technology enables fast deployment of new network services tailored to the specific needs of end users, among other features. Nevertheless, security is still a main concern when considering the industrial adoption of this technology. In this article we describe an open security architecture for active network platforms that follow the discrete approach. The proposed solution provides all the required security features, and it also grants proper scalability of the overall system, by using a distributed key-generation algorithm. The performance of the proposal is validated with experimental data obtained from a prototype implementation of the solution.