Effective Caching for the Secure Content Distribution in Information-Centric Networking

TL;DR

This paper proposes SDPC, a lightweight scheme for secure, authenticated caching of encrypted content in ICN, addressing the challenge of ineffective caching due to end-to-end encryption.

Contribution

Introduction of SDPC, a novel, lightweight authentication and key distribution protocol enabling effective caching of encrypted content in ICN.

Findings

SDPC ensures only authenticated consumers access content.

Security of SDPC verified with BAN logic and Scyther.

SDPC improves caching efficiency in secure ICN environments.

Abstract

The secure distribution of protected content requires consumer authentication and involves the conventional method of end-to-end encryption. However, in information-centric networking (ICN) the end-to-end encryption makes the content caching ineffective since encrypted content stored in a cache is useless for any consumer except those who know the encryption key. For effective caching of encrypted content in ICN, we propose a novel scheme, called the Secure Distribution of Protected Content (SDPC). SDPC ensures that only authenticated consumers can access the content. The SDPC is a lightweight authentication and key distribution protocol; it allows consumer nodes to verify the originality of the published article by using a symmetric key encryption. The security of the SDPC was proved with BAN logic and Scyther tool verification.