Security aspects of confidential network coding
Stefan Pfennig, Elke Franz · 2017
Since the first applications of network coding, there has been an increasing interest in this technology due to the promising benefits regarding efficiency. Moreover, network coding already provides a certain level of inherent security called algebraic security. Since this inherent security is not sufficient against a stronger attacker, a number of confidential network coding schemes has been developed. However, due to different interpretations of security and different attacker models, it is hard to give quantitative statements about the security and, therewith, to compare two schemes. In this work, we motivate why algebraic security is not enough and discuss the influence of the underlying finite field on the achievable security. Based on these considerations, we describe the bit security of confidential network coding schemes and use this measure to compare the security of selected schemes. Furthermore, we discuss a known-plaintext-attack on confidential network coding schemes and investigate the security of (e)SPOC under this attack. Simulation results confirm our expectations regarding the influence of the knowledge of the attacker. The presented findings are helpful for choosing the right algorithm and parameters in real systems to protect against different attackers.