Visible to the public SplitBox: Toward Efficient Private Network Function Virtualization

TitleSplitBox: Toward Efficient Private Network Function Virtualization
Publication TypeConference Paper
Year of Publication2016
AuthorsAsghar, Hassan Jameel, Melis, Luca, Soldani, Cyril, De Cristofaro, Emiliano, Kaafar, Mohamed Ali, Mathy, Laurent
Conference NameProceedings of the 2016 Workshop on Hot Topics in Middleboxes and Network Function Virtualization
PublisherACM
Conference LocationNew York, NY, USA
ISBN Number978-1-4503-4424-1
Keywordsfirewalls, Metrics, Middlebox Privacy, network function virtualization, pubcrawl, Resiliency, Router Systems Security, secret sharing
Abstract

This paper presents SplitBox, an efficient system for privacy-preserving processing of network functions that are outsourced as software processes to the cloud. Specifically, cloud providers processing the network functions do not learn the network policies instructing how the functions are to be processed. First, we propose an abstract model of a generic network function based on match-action pairs. We assume that this function is processed in a distributed manner by multiple honest-but-curious cloud service providers. Then, we introduce our SplitBox system for private network function virtualization and present a proof-of-concept implementation on FastClick, an extension of the Click modular router, using a firewall as a use case. Our experimental results achieve a throughput of over 2 Gbps with 1 kB-sized packets on average, traversing up to 60 firewall rules.

URLhttp://doi.acm.org/2940147.2940150
DOI2940147.2940150
Citation Keyasghar_splitbox:_2016