Towards a Secure Access to Content in Named Data Networking

Named Data Networking (NDN) is one of the most promising candidates for the next-generation Internet architecture. It adopts the Information Centric Networking (ICN) approach which considers the named data as the central element. For a more effective content delivery in this approach, content can be recovered from any node implementing caching capabilities. However, with this caching property, access control can no longer be ensured by traditional mechanisms. It must be built into the content itself regardless its location. In this paper, we propose an access control solution based on content encryption and valid both in closed and open environments. In this solution, sensitive content are encrypted and only authorized entities can retrieve the necessary keys for encryption and decryption. We demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed solution by implementing it in the prototype of NDN, named CCNx, and by evaluating its performances. This evaluation proves that our solution introduces an acceptable overhead, lower than that of the access control solution currently adopted in CCNx.