Forwarded From: Packet Storm <tattoomanat_private> DARPA hires Network Associates to help secure next-gen 'Nets By Elinor Mills, IDG News Service, 12/16/98 Network Associates, Inc. (NAI) yesterday announced that it is developing security protocols and products for the next generation of computer networks funded by the Department of Defense's Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). DARPA, which funded development of the Internet in the 1970s, is helping develop the next-generation Internet, which will be an overhaul of the current global network, said Terry Benzel, director of NAI Labs' Advanced Security Research Division. In the meantime, DARPA is also working on a program, dubbed "Active Networks," which is seen as an interim step towards the next-generation 'Net, Benzel said. The program envisions improving today's Internet infrastructure to provide for more flexible and dynamic loading and routing, she said. Instead of today's static routers, an Active Network will feature networking nodes that will process packet headers and information and relay information around the Internet using executable smart packets, or "active agents," rather than static packets, Benzel explained. "So every piece of information flowing through the network carries with it all the information needed for it to be executed in the Internet," she said. NAI has three contracts with DARPA for the Active Networks program. Under those contracts, NAI will develop: a security policy and working prototypes of an active network that knows how to move the dynamic information around; AMP software nodes that know how to receive the information; and new cryptography that will be needed to secure the new networks, Benzel said. DARPA's Active Networks program has been under way for about a year and has two more years to go, she said. DARPA expects to demonstrate the proof of its concepts, but not its products in mid-1999. NAI will use the technology it develops to create commercial products that could appear as early as mid- to late-1999, according to Benzel. "The results will feed into 'active security' as a product for NAI" down the road, she said. The active security concept involves having different components of security technology work together, she explained. For instance, if an intrusion detection system notices a security breach, it could send a message to the firewall which could then shut down the gateway, log the event and notify the console operator, Benzel said. Most of the participants in DARPA's Active Networking program are universities, with the exception of NAI and GTE-BBN Internetworking, she added. For the past 10 years, DARPA has been contracting with Trusted Information Systems (TIS), which was acquired by NAI earlier this year, said Benzel. As a result of a 1993 DARPA contract to investigate the ramifications of connecting private networks to a public data network, TIS invented the "fwtk" application proxy firewall toolkit, and later developed Gauntlet, the first commercial firewall, an NAI statement said. Four years later, DARPA awarded TIS several contracts to investigate the need for faster proxy firewalls. -o- Subscribe: mail majordomoat_private with "subscribe isn". Today's ISN Sponsor: Repent Security Incorporated [www.repsec.com]
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