The Internet was built in simpler, more innocent times and was harnessed by a curious mix of visionaries, educators, academics and technology fans as a way to democratize the distribution of information.
Decades later, the protocols that govern this buryconnected netThe work of private networks remains largely the same, but the composition of the Internet inhabitants of 2024 has changed significantly.
Now, the very foundation on which the Internet operates – its underlying communication protocols – are the means by which bad actors hope to extort, steal, ransom, and exploit Internet users.
Financial data from the world’s nations is interspersed with medically sensitive information, video feeds from a billion CCTV cameras and celebrity gossip. Among this mass, teams of highly trained technologists we call hackers take advantage of what is easily exploitable, with their sights set on vulnerable targets who are unprepared to combat the intelligent, cutting-edge methods that compromise their systems on a daily basis.
Although there are technologies that encrypt Internet traffic in general (such as the SSL-based system) https used to obfuscate web traffic) and, in particular (such as VPNs established for specific hosts between secure endpoints), are still carried by the same technologies in the form of protocols established deep in Internet history. These protocols were designed to be gregarious, so that mission-critical data or private financial information is transmitted over the Internet in the same way as any other.
That problem means that although the payloads may be relatively protected, the means to direct or route the traffic are still exploitable. This situation was the basis of an investigation carried out by Swiss academics. Adrian Perrigwho devised the SCION architecture at the prestigious ETH Zurich as a way to determine secure and resilient traffic routing. Without going too deep into technological weedsThe SCION architecture allows its users to dictate routes between private destinations and send data between them independently of the rest of the Internet.
The professor’s work has been so successful that the Swiss interbank clearing system, which could be called the heart and brain of the Swiss banking system, operates entirely through the SCION network, guaranteeing the reliability and security that are paramount.
Anapaya is the commercial outcome of the SCION research project, which brings SCION technology to the open market. Its products, available as physical or virtual devices, arbitrate and route sensitive information between predefined nodes, with extensive sets of granular rules that allow participating networks to exchange information in predetermined patterns, with established hosts, reference points, traffic types and possible destinations dictated by the operators. .
Speaking exclusively with Cloud computing newsthe general director of Anapaya, Martin Bosshardt gave us his ‘elevator speech’ to the SCION network, saying: “The SCION protocol ensures that your Internet service is routable (and) you can grant access to your network only to authorized users. So you can become invisible or non-existent to bad actors. Let’s say you have a 50-location SDN (software-defined network). These 50 locations can share their route information exclusively with each other. For anyone else on the Internet, these 50 locations simply don’t exist. There is no way that someone who doesn’t own your service’s routing information can route or access it, because they don’t know it’s there.”
To a layman in the world of cybersecurity, it may seem like overkill for an organization to effectively upgrade at least some of the most sensitive parts of its infrastructure. But Martin gave us context about how important being able to trade, exchange information, and use networked devices is to the world at large. It’s most evident in simple monetary terms, he said.
“The entire network security market has become a huge industry, so we would need to quote the figures exactly (238 billion dollars in 2024). But it seems that the network security market is now bigger than the cancer treatment market (223 billion dollars in 2024 ). Cancer is perhaps the most frightening and fundamental concern for humanity, and yet the industry to protect us on the Internet has grown larger. So we really have to fix this. Unlike cancer, the Internet is a creation of man; We understand exactly how the Internet works and why it has become a dangerous place. Making the Internet a secure and reliable network is comparatively very, very simple.”
Given the need for secure networks, some businesses are taking extraordinary measures to protect themselves, including replacing their network infrastructure from scratch with physical replacements for standard Internet devices and investing in MPLS (dedicated leased line) connections.
“Go with a single supplier, because obviously, if you build your own cabling or have your own infrastructure, you can create an isolated and secure situation. But very often you can’t run your own cables to all the authorities you want to connect. And there comes the superpower of the Internet. Critical services that operate over the Internet do not choose it as their preferred network; They choose the Internet because there is simply no other alternative.
“To make an Internet connection private, you always rely on layer five (OSI layers) capabilities, right? Basically, you trust the Internet Routing Protocol and BGP (Border Gateway Protocol) and then create privacy at the content, not at the routing level. The moment you are on the Internet, you have no control over routing. Isolation is happening with encryption. However, encryption does not insulate your service from bad actors. “It’s just about making sure you have control of the content.”
That’s where Anapaya comes in. “With the SCION protocol you have control of the routing. You decide (and) design policies based on the service. You control who has routable access to your service. Geographic limits are imposed or connections are limited to specific markets and network groups.”
SCION-based networks offer the ultimate combination of the security we primarily know from closed private networks, but with the flexibility and resilience of open cross-domain networks like the Internet. What makes SCION attractive is that it doesn’t need new infrastructure, new wiring or routers. SCION is simply “chipping” the existing Internet infrastructure that provides the most suitable global network for today’s requirements.
To learn more about SCION and the deployment options Anapaya offers, the company will be featured in the Cyber Security and Cloud track at TechEx Europe Coming to Amsterdam on October 1-2, 2024. If you can’t attend in person, head to Anapaya website I read the documentationor contact a networking and security expert to book a demo.
Explore other upcoming enterprise technology events and webinars powered by TechForge here.
