summaryrefslogtreecommitdiff
path: root/doc/rfc/rfc8192.txt
blob: f771ab5df1dc8ecc77beae09e5c70fc3c9fd5592 (plain) (blame)
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289
290
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321
322
323
324
325
326
327
328
329
330
331
332
333
334
335
336
337
338
339
340
341
342
343
344
345
346
347
348
349
350
351
352
353
354
355
356
357
358
359
360
361
362
363
364
365
366
367
368
369
370
371
372
373
374
375
376
377
378
379
380
381
382
383
384
385
386
387
388
389
390
391
392
393
394
395
396
397
398
399
400
401
402
403
404
405
406
407
408
409
410
411
412
413
414
415
416
417
418
419
420
421
422
423
424
425
426
427
428
429
430
431
432
433
434
435
436
437
438
439
440
441
442
443
444
445
446
447
448
449
450
451
452
453
454
455
456
457
458
459
460
461
462
463
464
465
466
467
468
469
470
471
472
473
474
475
476
477
478
479
480
481
482
483
484
485
486
487
488
489
490
491
492
493
494
495
496
497
498
499
500
501
502
503
504
505
506
507
508
509
510
511
512
513
514
515
516
517
518
519
520
521
522
523
524
525
526
527
528
529
530
531
532
533
534
535
536
537
538
539
540
541
542
543
544
545
546
547
548
549
550
551
552
553
554
555
556
557
558
559
560
561
562
563
564
565
566
567
568
569
570
571
572
573
574
575
576
577
578
579
580
581
582
583
584
585
586
587
588
589
590
591
592
593
594
595
596
597
598
599
600
601
602
603
604
605
606
607
608
609
610
611
612
613
614
615
616
617
618
619
620
621
622
623
624
625
626
627
628
629
630
631
632
633
634
635
636
637
638
639
640
641
642
643
644
645
646
647
648
649
650
651
652
653
654
655
656
657
658
659
660
661
662
663
664
665
666
667
668
669
670
671
672
673
674
675
676
677
678
679
680
681
682
683
684
685
686
687
688
689
690
691
692
693
694
695
696
697
698
699
700
701
702
703
704
705
706
707
708
709
710
711
712
713
714
715
716
717
718
719
720
721
722
723
724
725
726
727
728
729
730
731
732
733
734
735
736
737
738
739
740
741
742
743
744
745
746
747
748
749
750
751
752
753
754
755
756
757
758
759
760
761
762
763
764
765
766
767
768
769
770
771
772
773
774
775
776
777
778
779
780
781
782
783
784
785
786
787
788
789
790
791
792
793
794
795
796
797
798
799
800
801
802
803
804
805
806
807
808
809
810
811
812
813
814
815
816
817
818
819
820
821
822
823
824
825
826
827
828
829
830
831
832
833
834
835
836
837
838
839
840
841
842
843
844
845
846
847
848
849
850
851
852
853
854
855
856
857
858
859
860
861
862
863
864
865
866
867
868
869
870
871
872
873
874
875
876
877
878
879
880
881
882
883
884
885
886
887
888
889
890
891
892
893
894
895
896
897
898
899
900
901
902
903
904
905
906
907
908
909
910
911
912
913
914
915
916
917
918
919
920
921
922
923
924
925
926
927
928
929
930
931
932
933
934
935
936
937
938
939
940
941
942
943
944
945
946
947
948
949
950
951
952
953
954
955
956
957
958
959
960
961
962
963
964
965
966
967
968
969
970
971
972
973
974
975
976
977
978
979
980
981
982
983
984
985
986
987
988
989
990
991
992
993
994
995
996
997
998
999
1000
1001
1002
1003
1004
1005
1006
1007
1008
1009
1010
1011
1012
1013
1014
1015
1016
1017
1018
1019
1020
1021
1022
1023
1024
1025
1026
1027
1028
1029
1030
1031
1032
1033
1034
1035
1036
1037
1038
1039
1040
1041
1042
1043
1044
1045
1046
1047
1048
1049
1050
1051
1052
1053
1054
1055
1056
1057
1058
1059
1060
1061
1062
1063
1064
1065
1066
1067
1068
1069
1070
1071
1072
1073
1074
1075
1076
1077
1078
1079
1080
1081
1082
1083
1084
1085
1086
1087
1088
1089
1090
1091
1092
1093
1094
1095
1096
1097
1098
1099
1100
1101
1102
1103
1104
1105
1106
1107
1108
1109
1110
1111
1112
1113
1114
1115
1116
1117
1118
1119
1120
1121
1122
1123
1124
1125
1126
1127
1128
1129
1130
1131
1132
1133
1134
1135
1136
1137
1138
1139
1140
1141
1142
1143
1144
1145
1146
1147
1148
1149
1150
1151
1152
1153
1154
1155
1156
1157
1158
1159
1160
1161
1162
1163
1164
1165
1166
1167
1168
1169
1170
1171
1172
1173
1174
1175
1176
1177
1178
1179
1180
1181
1182
1183
1184
1185
1186
1187
1188
1189
1190
1191
1192
1193
1194
1195
1196
1197
1198
1199
1200
1201
1202
1203
1204
1205
1206
1207
1208
1209
1210
1211
1212
1213
1214
1215
1216
1217
1218
1219
1220
1221
1222
1223
1224
1225
1226
1227
1228
1229
1230
1231
1232
1233
1234
1235
1236
1237
1238
1239
1240
1241
1242
1243
1244
1245
1246
1247
1248
1249
1250
1251
1252
1253
1254
1255
1256
1257
1258
1259
1260
1261
1262
1263
1264
1265
1266
1267
1268
1269
1270
1271
1272
1273
1274
1275
1276
1277
1278
1279
1280
1281
1282
1283
1284
1285
1286
1287
1288
1289
1290
1291
1292
1293
1294
1295
1296
1297
1298
1299
1300
1301
1302
1303
1304
1305
1306
1307
1308
1309
1310
1311
1312
1313
1314
1315
1316
1317
1318
1319
1320
1321
1322
1323
1324
1325
1326
1327
1328
1329
1330
1331
1332
1333
1334
1335
1336
1337
1338
1339
1340
1341
1342
1343
1344
1345
1346
1347
1348
1349
1350
1351
1352
1353
1354
1355
1356
1357
1358
1359
1360
1361
1362
1363
1364
1365
1366
1367
1368
1369
1370
1371
1372
1373
1374
1375
1376
1377
1378
1379
1380
1381
1382
1383
1384
1385
1386
1387
1388
1389
1390
1391
1392
1393
1394
1395
1396
1397
1398
1399
1400
1401
1402
1403
1404
1405
1406
1407
1408
1409
1410
1411
1412
1413
1414
1415
1416
1417
1418
1419
1420
1421
1422
1423
1424
1425
1426
1427
1428
1429
1430
1431
1432
1433
1434
1435
1436
1437
1438
1439
1440
1441
1442
1443
1444
1445
1446
1447
1448
1449
1450
1451
1452
1453
1454
1455
1456
1457
1458
1459
1460
1461
1462
1463
1464
1465
1466
1467
1468
1469
1470
1471
1472
1473
1474
1475
1476
1477
1478
1479
1480
1481
1482
1483
1484
1485
1486
1487
1488
1489
1490
1491
1492
1493
1494
1495
1496
1497
1498
1499
1500
1501
1502
1503
1504
1505
1506
1507
1508
1509
1510
1511
1512
1513
1514
1515
1516
1517
1518
1519
1520
1521
1522
1523
1524
1525
1526
1527
1528
1529
1530
1531
1532
1533
1534
1535
1536
1537
1538
1539
1540
1541
1542
1543
1544
1545
1546
1547
1548
1549
1550
1551
1552
1553
1554
1555
1556
1557
1558
1559
1560
1561
1562
1563
1564
1565
1566
1567
1568
1569
1570
1571
1572
1573
1574
1575
1576
1577
1578
1579
1580
1581
1582
1583
1584
1585
1586
1587
1588
1589
1590
1591
1592
1593
1594
1595
1596
1597
1598
1599
1600
1601
1602
1603
1604
1605
1606
1607
1608
1609
1610
1611
1612
1613
1614
1615
1616
1617
1618
1619
1620
1621
1622
1623
1624
1625
1626
1627
Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)                          S. Hares
Request for Comments: 8192                                        Huawei
Category: Informational                                         D. Lopez
ISSN: 2070-1721                                           Telefonica I+D
                                                                M. Zarny
                                                                 vArmour
                                                            C. Jacquenet
                                                          France Telecom
                                                                R. Kumar
                                                        Juniper Networks
                                                                J. Jeong
                                                 Sungkyunkwan University
                                                               July 2017


            Interface to Network Security Functions (I2NSF):
                    Problem Statement and Use Cases

Abstract

   This document sets out the problem statement for Interface to Network
   Security Functions (I2NSF) and outlines some companion use cases.

Status of This Memo

   This document is not an Internet Standards Track specification; it is
   published for informational purposes.

   This document is a product of the Internet Engineering Task Force
   (IETF).  It represents the consensus of the IETF community.  It has
   received public review and has been approved for publication by the
   Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG).  Not all documents
   approved by the IESG are a candidate for any level of Internet
   Standard; see Section 2 of RFC 7841.

   Information about the current status of this document, any errata,
   and how to provide feedback on it may be obtained at
   http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8192.













Hares, et al.                 Informational                     [Page 1]
^L
RFC 8192           I2NSF Problem Statement & Use Cases         July 2017


Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2017 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
   document authors.  All rights reserved.

   This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
   Provisions Relating to IETF Documents
   (http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of
   publication of this document.  Please review these documents
   carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect
   to this document.  Code Components extracted from this document must
   include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of
   the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as
   described in the Simplified BSD License.





































Hares, et al.                 Informational                     [Page 2]
^L
RFC 8192           I2NSF Problem Statement & Use Cases         July 2017


Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
   2.  Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
   3.  Problem Space . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
     3.1.  Challenges Facing Security Service Providers  . . . . . .   6
       3.1.1.  Diverse Types of Security Functions . . . . . . . . .   6
       3.1.2.  Diverse Interfaces to Control and Monitor NSFs  . . .   8
       3.1.3.  More Distributed NSFs and vNSFs . . . . . . . . . . .   8
       3.1.4.  More Demand to Control NSFs Dynamically . . . . . . .   9
       3.1.5.  Demand for Multi-tenancy to Control and Monitor NSFs    9
       3.1.6.  Lack of Characterization of NSFs and Capability
               Exchange  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   9
       3.1.7.  Lack of Mechanism for NSFs to Utilize External
               Profiles  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  10
       3.1.8.  Lack of Mechanisms to Accept External Alerts to
               Trigger Automatic Rule and Configuration Changes  . .  10
       3.1.9.  Lack of Mechanism for Dynamic Key Distribution to
               NSFs  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  10
     3.2.  Challenges Facing Customers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  12
       3.2.1.  NSFs from Heterogeneous Administrative Domains  . . .  12
       3.2.2.  Today's Vendor-Specific Control Requests  . . . . . .  13
       3.2.3.  Difficulty for Customers to Monitor the Execution of
               Desired Policies  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  14
     3.3.  Lack of Standard Interface to Inject Feedback to NSF  . .  15
     3.4.  Lack of Standard Interface for Capability Negotiation . .  15
     3.5.  Difficulty in Validating Policies across Multiple Domains  15
     3.6.  Software-Defined Networks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  16
   4.  Use Cases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  17
     4.1.  Basic Framework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  17
     4.2.  Access Networks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  18
     4.3.  Cloud Data Center Scenario  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  21
       4.3.1.  On-Demand Virtual Firewall Deployment . . . . . . . .  21
       4.3.2.  Firewall Policy Deployment Automation . . . . . . . .  22
       4.3.3.  Client-Specific Security Policy in Cloud VPNs . . . .  22
       4.3.4.  Internal Network Monitoring . . . . . . . . . . . . .  23
     4.4.  Preventing DDoS, Malware, and Botnet Attacks  . . . . . .  23
     4.5.  Regulatory and Compliance Security Policies . . . . . . .  24
   5.  Management Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  24
   6.  IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  24
   7.  Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  24
   8.  Informative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  25
   Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  27
   Contributors  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  28
   Authors' Addresses  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  28






Hares, et al.                 Informational                     [Page 3]
^L
RFC 8192           I2NSF Problem Statement & Use Cases         July 2017


1.  Introduction

   This document sets out the problem statement for Interface to Network
   Security Functions (I2NSF) and outlines some use cases.  A summary of
   the state of the art in the industry and IETF that is relevant to
   I2NSF work is documented in [I2NSF-ANALYSIS].

   The growing challenges and complexity in maintaining a secure
   infrastructure, complying with regulatory requirements, and
   controlling costs are enticing enterprises into consuming network
   security functions hosted by service providers.  The hosted security
   service is especially attractive to small- and medium-size
   enterprises which suffer from a lack of security experts to
   continuously monitor networks, acquire new skills, and propose
   immediate mitigations to ever increasing sets of security attacks.

   According to [Gartner], the demand for hosted (or cloud-based)
   security services is growing.  Small- and medium-size businesses
   (SMBs) are increasingly adopting cloud-based security services to
   replace on-premises security tools, while larger enterprises are
   deploying a mix of traditional and cloud-based security services.

   To meet the demand, more and more service providers are providing
   hosted security solutions to deliver cost-effective managed security
   services to enterprise customers.  The hosted security services are
   primarily targeted at enterprises (especially small and medium ones)
   but could also be provided to any kind of mass-market customer.  As a
   result, the Network Security Functions (NSFs) are provided and
   consumed in a large variety of environments.  Users of NSFs may
   consume network security services hosted by one or more providers,
   which may be their own enterprise, service providers, or a
   combination of both.

   This document also briefly describes the following use cases
   summarized by [I2NSF-USECASES]:

   o  I2NSF Access Use Cases [OAM-USECASE],

   o  I2NSF Data Center Use Cases [DC-USECASE], and

   o  Integrated Security with Access Network Use Case [ACCESS-USECASE].










Hares, et al.                 Informational                     [Page 4]
^L
RFC 8192           I2NSF Problem Statement & Use Cases         July 2017


2.  Terminology

   AAA:  Authentication, Authorization, and Accounting [RFC2904]

   ACL:  Access Control List

   Bespoke security management:  Security management that is made to fit
      a particular customer.

   DC:  Data Center

   FW:  Firewall

   IDS:  Intrusion Detection System

   IPS:  Intrusion Protection System

   I2NSF:  Interface to Network Security Functions

   NSF:  Network Security Function.  An NSF is a function that is used
      to ensure integrity, confidentiality, or availability of network
      communication; to detect unwanted network activity; or to block,
      or at least mitigate, the effects of unwanted activity.

   Flow-based NSF:  An NSF that inspects network flows according to a
      security policy.  Flow-based security also means that packets are
      inspected in the order they are received and without altering
      packets due to the inspection process (e.g., Medium Access Control
      (MAC) rewrites, TTL decrement action, or NAT inspection or
      changes).  (Note: Some existing firewalls store packets and look
      at the packets in logical order, which is not the order these are
      received in time.  This document restricts flow-based NSF to this
      definition.)

   Security service provider:  A provider of security services to the
      customers (end users or enterprises) using NSF equipment purchased
      from vendors or created by the service provider.

   SDN:  Software-Defined Networking.  (See [RFC7426] for architecture
      and terminology or [RFC7149] for a service provider view.)

   vCPE:  virtual Customer Premises Equipment

   vEPC:  virtual Evolved Packet Core [EPC-3GPP]

   vNSF:  Virtual NSF.  An NSF that is deployed as a distributed virtual
      resource.




Hares, et al.                 Informational                     [Page 5]
^L
RFC 8192           I2NSF Problem Statement & Use Cases         July 2017


   vPE:  virtual Provider Edge

   VPN:  Virtual Private Network

3.  Problem Space

   The following sub-sections describe the problems and challenges
   facing customers and security service providers when some or all of
   the security functions are no longer physically hosted by the
   customer's administrative domain.

   Security service providers can be internal or external to the
   company.  For example, an internal IT security group within a large
   enterprise could act as a security service provider for the
   enterprise.  In contrast, an enterprise could outsource all security
   services to an external security service provider.  In this document,
   the security service provider function, whether it is internal or
   external, will be denoted as "service provider".

   The "Customer-Provider" relationship may be between any two parties.
   The parties can be in different organizations or different domains of
   the same organization.  Contractual agreements may be required in
   such contexts to formally document the customer's security
   requirements and the provider's guarantees to fulfill those
   requirements.  Such agreements may detail protection levels,
   escalation procedures, alarms reporting, etc.  There is currently no
   standard mechanism to capture those requirements.

   A service provider may be a customer of another service provider.

   It is the objective of the I2NSF work to address these problems and
   challenges.

3.1.  Challenges Facing Security Service Providers

3.1.1.  Diverse Types of Security Functions

   There are many types of NSFs.  NSFs by different vendors can have
   different features and interfaces.  NSFs can be deployed in multiple
   locations in a given network and perhaps have different roles.

   Below are a few examples of security functions and locations or
   contexts in which they are often deployed:

   External Intrusion and Attack Protection:  Examples of this function
      are firewall/ACL authentication, IPS, IDS, and endpoint
      protection.




Hares, et al.                 Informational                     [Page 6]
^L
RFC 8192           I2NSF Problem Statement & Use Cases         July 2017


   Security Functions in a Demilitarized Zone (DMZ):  Examples of this
      function are firewall/ACLs, IDS/IPS, one or all of AAA services,
      NAT, forwarding proxies, and application filtering.  These
      functions may be physically on-premise in a server provider's
      network at the DMZ spots or located in a "virtual" DMZ.

   Centralized or Distributed Security Functions:  The security
      functions could be deployed in a centralized fashion for ease of
      management and network design or in a distributed fashion for
      scaled requirement.  No matter how a security function is deployed
      and provisioned, it is desirable to have the same interface to
      provision security policies; otherwise, the job of security
      administration is more complex, requiring knowledge of firewall
      and network design.

   Internal Security Analysis and Reporting:  Examples of this function
      are security logs, event correlation, and forensic analysis.

   Internal Data and Content Protection:  Examples of this function are
      encryption, authorization, and public/private key management for
      internal databases.

   Security Gateways and VPN Concentrators:  Examples of these functions
      are IPsec gateways, secure VPN concentrators that handle bridging
      secure VPNs, and secure VPN controllers for data flows.

   Given the diversity of security functions, the contexts in which
   these functions can be deployed, and the constant evolution of these
   functions, standardizing all aspects of security functions is
   challenging and probably not feasible.  Fortunately, it is not
   necessary to standardize all aspects.  For example, from an I2NSF
   perspective, there is no need to standardize how every firewall's
   filtering is created or applied.  Some features in a specific
   vendor's filtering may be unique to the vendor's product, so it is
   not necessary to standardize these features.

   What is needed is a standardized interface to control and monitor the
   rule sets that NSFs use to treat packets traversing through these
   NSFs.  Thus, standardizing interfaces will provide an impetus for
   standardizing established security functions.

   I2NSF may specify some filters, but these filters will be linked to
   specific common functionality developed by I2NSF in information
   models or data models.







Hares, et al.                 Informational                     [Page 7]
^L
RFC 8192           I2NSF Problem Statement & Use Cases         July 2017


3.1.2.  Diverse Interfaces to Control and Monitor NSFs

   To provide effective and competitive solutions and services, security
   service providers may need to utilize multiple security functions
   from various vendors to enforce the security policies desired by
   their customers.

   Since no widely accepted industry standard interface to NSFs exists
   today, management of NSFs (device and policy provisioning,
   monitoring, etc.) tends to be custom-made security management offered
   by product vendors.  As a result, automation of such services, if it
   exists at all, is also custom made.  Thus, even in the traditional
   way of deploying security features, there is a gap that needs to be
   filled; this would require coordination among implementations from
   distinct vendors.

   A challenge for monitoring prior to mitigation of a security
   intrusion is that an NSF cannot monitor what it cannot view.  For
   example, enabling a security function to mitigate an intrusion (e.g.,
   firewall [FIREWALLS]) must include a mechanism to provide monitoring
   feedback in order to determine the intrusion has been stopped.
   Therefore, it is necessary to have a mechanism to monitor and provide
   execution status of NSFs to security and compliance management tools.
   Such mechanisms exist in vendor-specific network security interfaces
   for forensics and troubleshooting, but an industry standard interface
   could provide monitoring across a variety of NSFs.

3.1.3.  More Distributed NSFs and vNSFs

   The security functions that are invoked to enforce a security policy
   can be located in different equipment and network locations.

   The European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) Network
   Functions Virtualization (NFV) initiative [ETSI-NFV] creates new
   management challenges for security policies to be enforced by
   distributed vNSFs.

   A vNSF has higher risk of changes to the state of network connection,
   interfaces, or traffic, as their hosting Virtual Machines (VMs) are
   being created, moved, or decommissioned.











Hares, et al.                 Informational                     [Page 8]
^L
RFC 8192           I2NSF Problem Statement & Use Cases         July 2017


3.1.4.  More Demand to Control NSFs Dynamically

   In the advent of Software-Defined Networking (SDN) (see
   [SDN-SECURITY]), more clients, applications, or application
   controllers need to dynamically update their security policies that
   are enforced by NSFs.  The security service providers have to
   dynamically update their decision-making process (e.g., in terms of
   NSF resource allocation and invocation) upon receiving security-
   related requests from their clients.

3.1.5.  Demand for Multi-tenancy to Control and Monitor NSFs

   Service providers may need to deploy several NSF controllers to
   control and monitor the NSFs, especially when NSFs become distributed
   and virtualized.

3.1.6.  Lack of Characterization of NSFs and Capability Exchange

   To offer effective security services, service providers need to
   activate various security functions in NSFs or vNSFs manufactured by
   multiple vendors.  Even within one product category (e.g., firewall),
   security functions provided by different vendors can have different
   features and capabilities.  For example, filters that can be designed
   and activated by a firewall may or may not support IPv6 depending on
   the firewall technology.

   The service provider's management system (or controller) needs a way
   to retrieve the capabilities of service functions by different
   vendors so that it can build an effective security solution.  These
   service function capabilities can be documented in a static manner
   (e.g., a file) or via an interface that accesses a repository of
   security function capabilities that the NSF vendors dynamically
   update.

   A dynamic capability registration is useful for automation because
   security functions may be subject to software and hardware updates.
   These updates may have implications on the policies enforced by the
   NSFs.

   Today, there is no standard method for vendors to describe the
   capabilities of their security functions.  Without a common technical
   framework to describe the capabilities of security functions, service
   providers cannot automate the process of selecting NSFs by different
   vendors to accommodate customers' security requirements.

   The I2NSF work will focus on developing a standard method to describe
   capabilities of security functions.




Hares, et al.                 Informational                     [Page 9]
^L
RFC 8192           I2NSF Problem Statement & Use Cases         July 2017


3.1.7.  Lack of Mechanism for NSFs to Utilize External Profiles

   Many security functions depend on signature files or profiles (e.g.,
   IPS/IDS signatures and DDoS Open Threat Signaling (DOTS) filters).
   Different policies might need different signatures or profiles.
   Today, blacklist databases can be a beneficial strategy for all
   parties involved (except the attackers), but in the future, there
   might be open-source signatures and profiles distributed as part of
   IDS systems (e.g., by Snort, Suricata, Bro, and Kismet).

   There is a need to have a standard envelope (i.e., a message format)
   to allow NSFs to use external profiles.

3.1.8.  Lack of Mechanisms to Accept External Alerts to Trigger
        Automatic Rule and Configuration Changes

   NSFs can ask the I2NSF security controller to alter specific rules
   and/or configurations.  For example, a Distributed Denial of Service
   (DDoS) alert could trigger a change to the routing system to send
   traffic to a traffic scrubbing service to mitigate the DDoS.

   The DDoS protection has two parts: a) the configuration of signaling
   of open threats and b) DDoS mitigation.  The DOTS controller manages
   the signaling part of DDoS.  I2NSF controller(s) would control any
   changes to affected policies (e.g., forwarding and routing,
   filtering, etc.).  By monitoring the network alerts regarding DDoS
   attacks (e.g., from DOTS servers or clients), the I2NSF controller(s)
   can feed an alerts analytics engine that could recognize attacks so
   the I2NSF can enforce the appropriate policies.

   DDoS mitigation is enhanced if the provider's network security
   controller can monitor, analyze, and investigate the abnormal events
   and provide information to the customer or change the network
   configuration automatically.

   [CAP-INTERFACE] provides details on how monitoring aspects of the
   flow-based Network Security Functions (NSFs) can use the I2NSF
   interfaces to receive traffic reports and enforce appropriate
   policies.

3.1.9.  Lack of Mechanism for Dynamic Key Distribution to NSFs

   There is a need for a controller to create, manage, and distribute
   various keys to distributed NSFs.  While there are many key
   management methods and cryptographic suites (e.g., encryption
   algorithms, key derivation functions, etc.) and other functions,
   there is a lack of a standard interface to provision and manage
   security associations.



Hares, et al.                 Informational                    [Page 10]
^L
RFC 8192           I2NSF Problem Statement & Use Cases         July 2017


   The keys may be used for message authentication and integrity in
   order to protect data flows.  In addition, keys may be used to secure
   the protocols and messages in the core routing infrastructure (see
   [RFC4948]).

   As of now, there is not much focus on an abstraction for keying
   information that describes the interface between protocols,
   operators, and automated key management.

   An example of a solution may provide some insight into why the lack
   of a mechanism is a problem.  If a device had an abstract key table
   maintained by security services, it could use these keys for routing
   and security devices.

   What does this take?

   Conceptually, there must be an interface defined for routing/
   signaling protocols that can a) make requests for automated key
   management when it is being used and b) notify the protocols when
   keys become available in the key table.  One potential use of such an
   interface is to manage IPsec security associations on Software-
   Defined Networks.

   An abstract key service will work under the following conditions:

   1.  I2NSF needs to design the key table abstraction, the interface
       between key management protocols and routing/other protocols, and
       possibly security protocols at other layers.

   2.  For each routing/other protocol, I2NSF needs to define the
       mapping between how the protocol represents key material and the
       protocol-independent key table abstraction.  If several protocols
       share common mechanisms for authentication (e.g., TCP
       Authentication Option [RFC5925]), then the same mapping may be
       used for all usages of that mechanism.

   3.  Automated key management needs to support both pairwise keys and
       group keys via the abstract key service provided by items 1 and
       2.  I2NSF controllers within the NSF that are required to
       exchange data with NSFs may exchange data with individual NSFs
       using individual pairwise keys or with a group of NSFs
       simultaneously using an IP group address secured by a group
       security key(s).








Hares, et al.                 Informational                    [Page 11]
^L
RFC 8192           I2NSF Problem Statement & Use Cases         July 2017


3.2.  Challenges Facing Customers

   When customers invoke hosted security services, their security
   policies may be enforced by a collection of security functions hosted
   in different domains.  Customers may not have the security skills to
   express sufficiently precise requirements or security policies.
   Usually, these customers express the expectations of their security
   requirements or the intent of their security policies.  These
   expectations can be considered customer-level security expectations.
   Customers may also desire to express guidelines for security
   management.  Examples of such guidelines include:

   o  which critical communications are to be preserved during critical
      events and which hosts will continue services over the network,

   o  what signaling information is passed to a controller during a DDoS
      in order to ask for mitigation services (within the scope of the
      DOTS Working Group),

   o  reporting of attacks to CERT (within the scope of the MILE Working
      Group), and

   o  managing network connectivity of systems out of compliance (within
      the scope of the SACM Working Group).

3.2.1.  NSFs from Heterogeneous Administrative Domains

   Many medium and large enterprises have deployed various on-premises
   security functions that they want to continue to use.  These
   enterprises want to combine local security functions with remote
   hosted security functions to achieve more efficient and immediate
   countermeasures to attacks originating on both the Internet and
   enterprise networks.

   Some enterprises may only need the hosted security services for their
   remote branch offices where minimal security infrastructures/
   capabilities exist.  The security solution will consist of deploying
   NSFs on customer networks and on service provider networks.













Hares, et al.                 Informational                    [Page 12]
^L
RFC 8192           I2NSF Problem Statement & Use Cases         July 2017


3.2.2.  Today's Vendor-Specific Control Requests

   Customers may utilize NSFs provided by multiple service providers.
   Customers need to express their security requirements, guidelines,
   and expectations to the service providers.  In turn, the service
   providers must translate this customer information into customer
   security policies and associated configuration tasks for the set of
   security functions in their network.  Without a standardized
   interface that provides a clear technical characterization, the
   service provider faces many challenges:

   No standard technical characterization, APIs, or interface(s):
      Even for the most common security services, there is no standard
      technical characterization, APIs, or interface(s).  Most security
      services are accessible only through disparate, proprietary
      interfaces (e.g., portals or APIs) in whatever format vendors
      choose to offer.  The service provider must process the customer's
      input with these widely varying interfaces and differing
      configuration models for security devices and security policy.
      Without a standard interface, new innovative security products
      find a large barrier to entry into the market.

   Lack of immediate feedback:  Customers may also require a mechanism
      to easily update/modify their security requirements with immediate
      effect in the underlying involved NSFs.

   Lack of explicit invocation request:  While security agreements are
      in place, security functions may be solicited without requiring an
      explicit invocation means.  Nevertheless, some explicit invocation
      means may be required to interact with a service function.

   Managing by scripts du jour:  The current practices rely upon the use
      of scripts that generate other scripts, which automatically run to
      upload or download configuration changes, log information, and
      other things.  These scripts have to be adjusted each time an
      implementation from a different vendor technology is enabled by a
      provider.

   To see how standard interfaces could help achieve faster
   implementation time cycles, let us consider a customer who would like
   to dynamically allow an encrypted flow with a specific port, src/dst
   addresses, or protocol type through the firewall/IPS to enable an
   encrypted video conferencing call only during the time of the call.
   With no commonly accepted interface in place, as shown in Figure 1,
   the customer would have to learn about the particular provider's
   firewall/IPS interface and send the request in the provider's
   required format.




Hares, et al.                 Informational                    [Page 13]
^L
RFC 8192           I2NSF Problem Statement & Use Cases         July 2017


           +------------+
           | Security   |
           | Management |
           | System     |
           +----||------+
                ||   Proprietary
                ||   or I2NSF Standard
   Video:       ||
   Port 10   +--------+
     --------| FW/IPS |-------------
   Encrypted +--------+
   Video Flow

         Figure 1: Example of Non-standard vs. Standard Interface

   In contrast, as Figure 1 shows, if a firewall/IPS interface standard
   exists, the customer would be able to send the request to a security
   management system, and the security management would send it via a
   I2NSF standard interface.  Service providers could now utilize the
   same standard interface to represent firewall/IPS services
   implemented using products from many vendors.

3.2.3.  Difficulty for Customers to Monitor the Execution of Desired
        Policies

   How a policy is translated into technology-specific actions is hidden
   from the customers.  However, customers still need ways to monitor
   the delivered security service that results from the execution of
   their desired security requirements, guidelines, and expectations.
   Customers want to monitor existing policies to determine such things
   as which policies are in effect, how many security attacks are being
   prevented, and how much bandwidth efficiency does security
   enforcement cost.

   Today, there is no standard way for customers to get these details
   from the security service.  As a consequence, there is no way to
   assure customers that their specified security policies are properly
   enforced by the security functions located in the provider domain.

   Customers also want this monitoring information from the security
   system in order to plan for the future using "what-if" scenarios with
   real data.  A tight loop between the data gathered from security
   systems and the "what-if" scenario planning can reduce the time to
   design and deploy workable security policies that deal with new
   threats.

   It is the objective of the I2NSF work to provide a standard way to
   get the information that security service assurance systems need to



Hares, et al.                 Informational                    [Page 14]
^L
RFC 8192           I2NSF Problem Statement & Use Cases         July 2017


   provide customers an evaluation about the current security systems
   and to quickly plan for future security policies using "what-if"
   scenarios based on today's information.

3.3.  Lack of Standard Interface to Inject Feedback to NSF

   Today, many security functions in the NSF, such as IPS, IDS, DDoS
   mitigation, and antivirus, depend heavily on the associated profiles.
   NSF devices can perform more effective protection if these NSF
   devices have the up-to-date profiles for these functions.  Today,
   there is no standard interface to provide these security profiles for
   the NSF.

   As more sophisticated threats arise, protection will depend on
   enterprises, vendors, and service providers being able to cooperate
   to develop optimal profiles; one example of this cooperation is the
   Cyber Threat Alliance [CTA].  The standard interface to provide
   security profiles to the NSF should interwork with the formats that
   exchange security profiles between organizations.

   One objective of the I2NSF work is to provide this type of standard
   interface to security profiles.

3.4.  Lack of Standard Interface for Capability Negotiation

   There could be situations when the selected NSFs cannot perform the
   policies requested by the security controller due to resource
   constraints.  The customer and security service provider should
   negotiate the appropriate resource constraints before the security
   service begins.  However, unexpected events may happen that cause the
   NSF to exhaust those negotiated resources.  At this point, the NSF
   should inform the security controller that the allotted resources
   have been exhausted.  To support the automatic control in the SDN
   era, it is necessary to have a set of messages for proper
   notification (and a response to that notification) between the
   security controller and the NSFs.

3.5.  Difficulty in Validating Policies across Multiple Domains

   As discussed in the previous four sub-sections, both service
   providers and customers have need to express policies and profiles,
   monitor systems, verify security policy has been installed in NSFs
   within a security domain, and establish limits for services NSFs can
   safely perform.  This sub-section and the next sub-section
   (Section 3.6) examine what happens in two specific network scenarios:
   a) multi-domain control of security devices hosted on virtual and
   non-virtual NSFs and b) Software-Defined Networking.




Hares, et al.                 Informational                    [Page 15]
^L
RFC 8192           I2NSF Problem Statement & Use Cases         July 2017


   Hosted security service may instantiate NSFs in virtual machines that
   are sometimes widely distributed in the network and sometimes are
   combined together in one device to perform a set of tasks for
   delivering a service.  Hosted security services may be connected
   within a single service provider or via multiple service providers.
   Ensuring that the security service purchased by the customer adheres
   to customer policy requires that the central controller(s) for this
   service monitor and validate this service across multiple networks on
   NSFs (some of which may be virtual networks on virtual machines).  To
   set up this cross-domain service, the security controller must be
   able to communicate with NSFs and/or controllers within its domain
   and across domains to negotiate for the services needed.

   Without standard interfaces and security policy data models, the
   enforcement of a customer-driven security policy remains challenging
   because of the inherent complexity created by combining the
   invocation of several vendor-specific security functions into a
   multi-vendor, heterogeneous environment across multiple domains.
   Each vendor-specific function may require specific configuration
   procedures and operational tasks.

   Ensuring the consistent enforcement of the policies at various
   domains is also challenging.  Standard data models are likely to
   contribute to solving that issue.

3.6.  Software-Defined Networks

   Software-Defined Networks have changed the landscape of data-center
   designs by introducing overlay networks deployed over Top-of-Rack
   (ToR) switches that connect to a hypervisor.  SDN techniques are
   meant to improve the flexibility of workload management without
   affecting applications and how they work.  Workload can thus be
   easily and seamlessly managed across private and public clouds.  SDN
   techniques optimize resource usage and are now being deployed in
   various networking environments besides cloud infrastructures.  Yet,
   such SDN-conferred agility may raise specific security issues.  For
   example, a security administrator must make sure that a security
   policy can be enforced regardless of the location of the workload,
   thereby raising concerns about the ability of SDN computation logic
   to send security policy-provisioning information to the participating
   NSFs.  A second example is workload migration to a public cloud
   infrastructure, which may raise additional security requirements
   during the migration.








Hares, et al.                 Informational                    [Page 16]
^L
RFC 8192           I2NSF Problem Statement & Use Cases         July 2017


4.  Use Cases

   Standard interfaces for monitoring and controlling the behavior of
   NSFs are essential building blocks for security service providers and
   enterprises to automate the use of different NSFs from multiple
   vendors by their security management entities.  I2NSF may be invoked
   by any (authorized) client.  Examples of authorized clients are
   upstream applications (controllers), orchestration systems, and
   security portals.

4.1.  Basic Framework

   Users request security services through specific clients (e.g., a
   customer application, the Business Support Systems / Operations
   Support Systems (BSSs/OSSs) of Network Service Providers (NSPs), or a
   management platform), and the appropriate NSP network entity will
   invoke the (v)NSFs according to the user service request.  This
   network entity is denoted as the security controller in this
   document.  The interaction between the entities discussed above
   (client, security controller, and NSF) is shown in Figure 2:

                                +----------+
         +-------+              |          |                  +-------+
         |       |  Interface 1 |Security  |   Interface 2    | NSF(s)|
         |Client <-------------->          <------------------>       |
         |       |              |Controller|                  |       |
         +-------+              |          |                  +-------+
                                +----------+

                  Figure 2: Interaction between Entities

   Interface 1 is used for receiving security requirements from a client
   and translating them into commands that NSFs can understand and
   execute.  The security controller also passes back NSF security
   reports (e.g., statistics) to the client that the security controller
   has gathered from NSFs.  Interface 2 is used for interacting with
   NSFs according to commands (e.g., enact/revoke a security policy or
   distribute a policy) and collecting status information about NSFs.

   Client devices or applications can require the security controller to
   add, delete, or update rules in the security service function for
   their specific traffic.

   When users want to get the executing status of a security service,
   they can request NSF status from the client.  The security controller
   will collect NSF information through Interface 2, consolidate it, and
   give feedback to the client through Interface 1.  This interface can




Hares, et al.                 Informational                    [Page 17]
^L
RFC 8192           I2NSF Problem Statement & Use Cases         July 2017


   be used to collect not only individual service information, but also
   aggregated data suitable for tasks like infrastructure security
   assessment.

   Customers may require validating NSF availability, provenance, and
   execution.  This validation process, especially relevant to vNSFs,
   includes at least:

   Integrity of the NSF:  Ensuring that the NSF is not compromised;

   Isolation:  Ensuring the execution of the NSF is self-contained for
      privacy requirements in multi-tenancy scenarios; and

   Provenance of the NSF:  Customers may need to be provided with strict
      guarantees about the origin of the NSF, its status (e.g.,
      available, idle, down, and others), and feedback mechanisms so
      that a customer may be able to check that a given NSF or set of
      NSFs properly conform to the customer's requirements and
      subsequent configuration tasks.

   In order to achieve this, the security controller may collect
   security measurements and share them with an independent and trusted
   third party (via Interface 1) in order to allow for attestation of
   NSF functions using the third-party added information.

   This implies that there may be the following two types of clients
   using Interface 1: the end user and the trusted, independent third
   party.  The I2NSF work may determine that Interface 1 creates two
   sub-interfaces to support these two types of clients.

4.2.  Access Networks

   This scenario describes use cases for users (e.g., residential user,
   enterprise user, mobile user, and management system) that request and
   manage security services hosted in the NSP infrastructure.  Given
   that NSP customers are essentially users of their access networks,
   the scenario is essentially associated with their characteristics as
   well as with the use of vNSFs.  Figure 3 shows how different types of
   customers connect through virtual access nodes (vCPE, vPE, and vEPC)
   to an NSF.

   The vCPE described in use case #7 in [NFVUC] requires a model of
   access virtualization that includes mobile and residential access
   networks where the operator may offload security services from the
   customer's local environment (e.g., device or terminal) to its own
   infrastructure.





Hares, et al.                 Informational                    [Page 18]
^L
RFC 8192           I2NSF Problem Statement & Use Cases         July 2017


   These use cases define the interaction between the operator and the
   vNSFs through automated interfaces that support the business
   communications between customer and provider or between two business
   entities.

            Customer   +     Access     +     PoP / Data Center
                       |                |     +--------+
                       |          ,-----+--.  |Network |
                       |        ,'      |   `-|Operator|
       +-------------+ |       /+----+  |     |Mgmt Sys|
       | Residential |-+------/-+vCPE+----+   +--------+
       +-------------+ |     /  +----+  |  \     |     :
                       |    /           |   \    |     |
        +----------+   |   ;    +----+  |    +----+    |
        |Enterprise|---+---+----+ vPE+--+----+ NSF|    |
        +----------+   |   :    +----+  |    +----+    |
                       |    :           |   /          |
            +--------+ |    :   +----+  |  /           ;
            | Mobile |-+-----\--+vEPC+----+           /
            +--------+ |      \ +----+  | Service    /
                       |       `--.     | Provider  /
                       |           `----+---------..
                       +                +   ^^
                                            ||
                                      Service Provider
                                         encompasses
                                         everything
                                         in circle

   vCPE - virtual customer premises equipment
   vPE  - virtual provider edge
   vEPC - virtual evolved packet core
   PoP  - point of presence

                         Figure 3: NSF and Actors

   Different access clients may have different service requests:

   Residential:  service requests for parental control, content
      management, and threat management.

      Threat content management may include identifying and blocking
      malicious activities from web contents, mail, or files downloaded.
      Threat management may include identifying and blocking botnets or
      malware.

   Enterprise:  service requests for enterprise flow security policies
      and managed security services.



Hares, et al.                 Informational                    [Page 19]
^L
RFC 8192           I2NSF Problem Statement & Use Cases         July 2017


      Flow security policies identify and block malicious activities
      during access to (or isolation from) web sites or social media
      applications.  Managed security services for an enterprise may
      include detection and mitigation of external and internal threats.
      External threats can include application or phishing attacks,
      malware, botnet, DDoS, and others.

   Service Provider:  service requests for policies that protect service
      provider networks against various threats (including DDoS,
      botnets, and malware).  Such policies are meant to securely and
      reliably deliver contents (e.g., data, voice, and video) to
      various customers, including residential, mobile, and corporate
      customers.  These security policies are also enforced to guarantee
      isolation between multiple tenants, regardless of the nature of
      the corresponding connectivity services.

   Mobile:  service requests from interfaces that monitor and ensure
      user quality of experience, content management, parental controls,
      and external threat management.

      Content management for the mobile device includes identifying and
      blocking malicious activities from web contents, mail, and files
      uploaded/downloaded.  Threat management for infrastructure
      includes detecting and removing malicious programs such as botnet,
      malware, and other programs that create DDoS attacks).

   Some access customers may not care about which NSFs are utilized to
   achieve the services they requested.  In this case, provider network
   orchestration systems can internally select the NSFs (or vNSFs) to
   enforce the security policies requested by the clients.

   Other access customers, especially some enterprise customers, may
   want to contract separately for dedicated NSFs (most likely vNSFs)
   for direct control purposes.  In this case, here are the steps to
   associate vNSFs to specific customers:

   vNSF Deployment:  The deployment process consists of instantiating an
      NSF on an NFV Infrastructure (NFVI), within the NSP administrative
      domain(s) or with other external domain(s).  This is a required
      step before a customer can subscribe to a security service
      supported in the vNSF.

   vNSF Customer Provisioning:  Once a vNSF is deployed, any customer
      can subscribe to it.  The provisioning life cycle includes the
      following:

      *  Customer enrollment and cancellation of the subscription to a
         vNSF.



Hares, et al.                 Informational                    [Page 20]
^L
RFC 8192           I2NSF Problem Statement & Use Cases         July 2017


      *  Configuration of the vNSF, based on specific configurations or
         derived from common security policies defined by the NSP.

      *  Retrieval of the vNSF functionalities, extracted from a
         manifest or a descriptor.  The NSP management systems can
         demand this information to offer detailed information through
         the commercial channels to the customer.

4.3.  Cloud Data Center Scenario

   In a data center, network security mechanisms such as firewalls may
   need to be dynamically added or removed for a number of reasons.
   These changes may be explicitly requested by the user or triggered by
   a pre-agreed-upon demand level in the Service Level Agreement (SLA)
   between the user and the provider of the service.  For example, the
   service provider may be required to add more firewall capacity within
   a set of time frames whenever the bandwidth utilization hits a
   certain threshold for a specified period.  This capacity expansion
   could result in adding new instances of firewalls on existing
   machines or provisioning a completely new firewall instance in a
   different machine.

   The on-demand, dynamic nature of security service delivery
   essentially encourages that the network security "devices" be in
   software or virtual forms rather than in a physical appliance form.
   This requirement is a provider-side concern.  Users of the firewall
   service are agnostic (as they should be) as to whether or not the
   firewall service is run on a VM or any other form factor.  Indeed,
   they may not even be aware that their traffic traverses firewalls.

   Furthermore, new firewall instances need to be placed in the "right
   zone" (domain).  The issue applies not only to multi-tenant
   environments where getting the tenant in the right domain is of
   paramount importance, but also in environments owned and operated by
   a single organization with its own service segregation policies.  For
   example, an enterprise may mandate that firewalls serving Internet
   traffic within the organization be separated from inter-organization
   traffic.  Another example is IPS/IDS services that split investment
   banking traffic from other data traffic to comply with regulatory
   restrictions for transfer of investment banking information.

4.3.1.  On-Demand Virtual Firewall Deployment

   A cloud data center operated by a service provider could serve tens
   of thousands of clients.  Clients' compute servers are typically
   hosted on VMs, which could be deployed across different server racks
   located in different parts of the data center.  It is often not
   technically and/or financially feasible to deploy dedicated physical



Hares, et al.                 Informational                    [Page 21]
^L
RFC 8192           I2NSF Problem Statement & Use Cases         July 2017


   firewalls to suit each client's security policy requirements, which
   can be numerous.  What is needed is the ability to dynamically deploy
   virtual firewalls for each client's set of servers based on
   established security policies and underlying network topologies.
   Figure 4 shows an example topology of virtual firewalls within a data
   center.

           ---+-----------------------------+-----
              |                             |
             +---+                         +-+-+
             |vFW|                         |vFW|
             +---+                         +-+-+
               |    Client #1                |  Client #2
            ---+-------+---               ---+-------+---
             +-+-+   +-+-+                 +-+-+   +-+-+
             |VM |   |VM |                 |VM |   |VM |
             +---+   +---+                 +---+   +---+

                       Figure 4: NSF in Data Centers

4.3.2.  Firewall Policy Deployment Automation

   Firewall rules apply to traffic usually identified with addresses and
   ports.  It becomes far more complex in provider-owned cloud networks
   that serve myriads of customers.

   Firewall rules today are highly tied with ports and addresses that
   identify traffic.  This makes it very difficult for clients of cloud
   data centers to construct rules for their own traffic, as the clients
   only see the virtual networks and the virtual addresses.  The
   customer-visible virtual networks and addresses may be different from
   the actual packets traversing the firewalls.

   Even though most vendors support similar firewall features, the
   specific rule configuration keywords are different from vendor to
   vendor, making it difficult for automation.  Automation works best
   when it can leverage a common set of standards that will work across
   NSFs by multiple vendors and utilize dynamic key management.

4.3.3.  Client-Specific Security Policy in Cloud VPNs

   Clients of cloud data centers operated by a service provider need to
   secure Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) and virtual security functions
   that apply the clients' security policies.  The security policies may
   govern communication within the clients' own virtual networks as well
   as communication with external networks.  For example, VPN service
   providers may need to provide firewall and other security services to
   their VPN clients.  Today, it is generally not possible for clients



Hares, et al.                 Informational                    [Page 22]
^L
RFC 8192           I2NSF Problem Statement & Use Cases         July 2017


   to dynamically view (let alone change) what, where, and how security
   policies are implemented on their provider-operated clouds.  Indeed,
   no standards-based framework exists to allow clients to retrieve/
   manage security policies in a consistent manner across different
   providers.

   As described above, the dynamic key management is critical for
   securing the VPN and the distribution of policies.

4.3.4.  Internal Network Monitoring

   There are many types of internal traffic monitors that may be managed
   by a security controller.  This includes the class of services
   referred to as Data Loss Prevention (DLP) or Reputation Protection
   Services (RPS).  Depending on the class of event, alerts may go to
   internal administrators or external services.

4.4.  Preventing DDoS, Malware, and Botnet Attacks

   On the Internet, where everything is connected, preventing unwanted
   traffic that may cause a DoS attack or a DDoS attack has become a
   challenge.  Similarly, a network could be exposed to malware attacks
   and become an attack vector that may jeopardize the operation of
   other networks, by means of remote commands for example.  Many
   networks that carry groups of information (such as Internet of Things
   (IoT) networks, Information-Centric Networks (ICNs), Content Delivery
   Networks (CDNs), Voice over IP (VoIP) packet networks, and Voice over
   LTE (VoLTE)) are also exposed to such remote attacks.  There are many
   examples of remote attacks on these networks, but the following
   examples will illustrate the issues.  A malware attack on an IoT
   network that carries sensor readings and instructions may attempt to
   alter the sensor instructions in order to disable a key sensor.  A
   malware attack on VoIP or VoLTE networks involves software that
   attempts to place unauthorized long-distance calls.  Botnets may
   overwhelm nodes in ICNs and CDNs so that the networks cannot pass
   critical data.

   In order for organizations to better secure their networks against
   these kind of attacks, the I2NSF framework should provide a client-
   side interface that is use case independent and technology agnostic.
   Technology agnostic is defined to be generic, technology independent,
   and able to support multiple protocols and data models.  For example,
   such an I2NSF interface could be used to provision security policy
   configuration information that looks for specific malware signatures.
   Similarly, botnet attacks could be easily prevented by provisioning
   security policies using the I2NSF client-side interface that prevents
   access to botnet command and control servers.




Hares, et al.                 Informational                    [Page 23]
^L
RFC 8192           I2NSF Problem Statement & Use Cases         July 2017


4.5.  Regulatory and Compliance Security Policies

   Organizations must protect their networks against attacks and must
   also adhere to various industry regulations: any organization that
   falls under a specific regulation, like the Payment Card Industry -
   Data Security Standard (PCI-DSS) [PCI-DSS] for the payment industry
   or the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act [HIPAA]
   for the healthcare industry, must be able to isolate various kinds of
   traffic.  They must also show records of their security policies
   whenever audited.

   The I2NSF client-side interface could be used to provision regulatory
   and compliance-related security policies.  The security controller
   would keep track of when and where a specific policy is applied and
   if there is any policy violation; this information can be provided in
   the event of an audit as proof that traffic is isolated between
   specific endpoints, in full compliance with the required regulations.

5.  Management Considerations

   Management of NSFs usually include the following:

   o  Life-cycle management and resource management of NSFs,

   o  Device configuration, such as address configuration, device
      internal attributes configuration, etc.,

   o  Signaling of events, notifications, and changes, and

   o  Policy rule provisioning.

   I2NSF will only focus on the policy provisioning part of NSF
   management.

6.  IANA Considerations

   This document does not require any IANA actions.

7.  Security Considerations

   Having secure access to control and monitor NSFs is crucial for
   hosted security services.  An I2NSF security controller raises new
   security threats.  It needs to be resilient to attacks and quickly
   recover from them.  Therefore, proper secure communication channels
   have to be carefully specified for carrying, controlling, and
   monitoring traffic between the NSFs and their management entity (or
   entities).




Hares, et al.                 Informational                    [Page 24]
^L
RFC 8192           I2NSF Problem Statement & Use Cases         July 2017


   The traffic flow security policies specified by customers can
   conflict with providers' internal traffic flow security policies.
   This conflict can be resolved in one of two ways: a) installed
   policies can restrict traffic if either the customer traffic flow
   security policies or the provider's internal security policies
   restrict traffic, or b) installed policies can only restrict traffic
   if both the customer traffic flow security policies and the
   provider's internal traffic flow security policies restrict data.
   Either choice could cause potential problems.  It is crucial for the
   management system to flag these conflicts to the customers and to the
   service provider.

   It is important to proper AAA [RFC2904] to authorize access to the
   network and access to the I2NSF management stream.

   Enforcing the appropriate privacy is key to all IETF protocols (see
   [RFC6973]) and is especially important for IETF security management
   protocols since they are deployed to protect the network.  In some
   circumstances, security management protocols may be utilized to
   protect an individual's home, phone, or other personal data.  In this
   case, any solution should carefully consider whether combining
   management streams abides by the recommendations of [RFC6973] for
   data minimization, user participation, and security.

8.  Informative References

   [ACCESS-USECASE]
              Wang, K. and X. Zhuang, "Integrated Security with Access
              Network Use Case", Work in Progress,
              draft-qi-i2nsf-access-network-usecase-02, March 2015.

   [CAP-INTERFACE]
              Zhou, C., Xia, L., Boucadair, M., and J. Xiong, "The
              Capability Interface for Monitoring Network Security
              Functions (NSF) in I2NSF", Work in Progress,
              draft-zhou-i2nsf-capability-interface-monitoring-00,
              October 2015.

   [CTA]      "Cyber Threat Alliance", <http://cyberthreatalliance.org>.

   [DC-USECASE]
              Zarny, M., Majee, S., Leymann, N., and L. Dunbar, "I2NSF
              Data Center Use Cases", Work in Progress,
              draft-zarny-i2nsf-data-center-use-cases-00, October 2014.

   [EPC-3GPP] Firmin, F., "The Evolved Packet Core", January 2017.





Hares, et al.                 Informational                    [Page 25]
^L
RFC 8192           I2NSF Problem Statement & Use Cases         July 2017


   [ETSI-NFV] ETSI, "Network Functions Virtualisation (NFV);
              Architectural Framework", ETSI GS NFV 002 V1.2.1, December
              2014.

   [FIREWALLS]
              Baker, F. and P. Hoffman, "On Firewalls in Internet
              Security", Work in Progress,
              draft-ietf-opsawg-firewalls-01, October 2012.

   [Gartner]  Messmer, E., "Gartner: Cloud-based security as a service
              set to take off", October 2013.

   [HIPAA]    US Congress, "Health Insurance Portability and
              Accountability Act of 1996 (Public Law 104-191)", August
              1996, <https://www.hhs.gov/hipaa/>.

   [I2NSF-ANALYSIS]
              Hares, S., Moskowitz, R., and D. Zhang, "Analysis of
              Existing work for I2NSF", Work in Progress,
              draft-ietf-i2nsf-gap-analysis-03, March 2017.

   [I2NSF-USECASES]
              Pastor, A., Lopez, D., Wang, K., Zhuang, X., Qi, M.,
              Zarny, M., Majee, S., Leymann, N., Dunbar, L., and M.
              Georgiades, "Use Cases and Requirements for an Interface
              to Network Security Functions", Work in Progress,
              draft-pastor-i2nsf-merged-use-cases-00, June 2015.

   [NFVUC]    ETSI, "Network Functions Virtualization (NFV); Use Cases",
              ETSI GR NFV 001 V1.2.1, May 2017.

   [OAM-USECASE]
              Pastor, A. and D. Lopez, "Access Use Cases for an Open OAM
              Interface to Virtualized Security Services", Work in
              Progress, draft-pastor-i2nsf-access-usecases-00, October
              2014.

   [PCI-DSS]  PCI Security Standards Council, "Payment Card Industry
              (PCI) Data Security Standard -- Requirements and Security
              Assessment Procedures", PCS DSS v3.2, April 2016,
              <https://www.pcisecuritystandards.org/pci_security/>.

   [RFC2904]  Vollbrecht, J., Calhoun, P., Farrell, S., Gommans, L.,
              Gross, G., de Bruijn, B., de Laat, C., Holdrege, M., and
              D. Spence, "AAA Authorization Framework", RFC 2904,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC2904, August 2000,
              <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2904>.




Hares, et al.                 Informational                    [Page 26]
^L
RFC 8192           I2NSF Problem Statement & Use Cases         July 2017


   [RFC4948]  Andersson, L., Davies, E., and L. Zhang, "Report from the
              IAB workshop on Unwanted Traffic March 9-10, 2006",
              RFC 4948, DOI 10.17487/RFC4948, August 2007,
              <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4948>.

   [RFC5925]  Touch, J., Mankin, A., and R. Bonica, "The TCP
              Authentication Option", RFC 5925, DOI 10.17487/RFC5925,
              June 2010, <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5925>.

   [RFC6973]  Cooper, A., Tschofenig, H., Aboba, B., Peterson, J.,
              Morris, J., Hansen, M., and R. Smith, "Privacy
              Considerations for Internet Protocols", RFC 6973,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC6973, July 2013,
              <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6973>.

   [RFC7149]  Boucadair, M. and C. Jacquenet, "Software-Defined
              Networking: A Perspective from within a Service Provider
              Environment", RFC 7149, DOI 10.17487/RFC7149, March 2014,
              <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7149>.

   [RFC7426]  Haleplidis, E., Ed., Pentikousis, K., Ed., Denazis, S.,
              Hadi Salim, J., Meyer, D., and O. Koufopavlou, "Software-
              Defined Networking (SDN): Layers and Architecture
              Terminology", RFC 7426, DOI 10.17487/RFC7426, January
              2015, <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7426>.

   [SDN-SECURITY]
              Jeong, J., Kim, H., Park, J., Ahn, T., and S. Lee,
              "Software-Defined Networking Based Security Services using
              Interface to Network Security Functions", Work in
              Progress, draft-jeong-i2nsf-sdn-security-services-05, July
              2016.

Acknowledgments

   This document was supported by the Institute for Information &
   Communications Technology Promotion (IITP), which is funded by the
   Ministry of Science, ICT & Future Planning (MSIP) (R0166-15-1041,
   Standard Development of Network Security based SDN).












Hares, et al.                 Informational                    [Page 27]
^L
RFC 8192           I2NSF Problem Statement & Use Cases         July 2017


Contributors

   I2NSF is a group effort.  The following people actively contributed
   to the initial use case text: Xiaojun Zhuang (China Mobile), Sumandra
   Majee (F5), Ed Lopez (Curveball Networks), and Robert Moskowitz
   (Huawei).

   I2NSF has had a number of contributing authors.  The following are
   considered co-authors:

   o  Linda Dunbar (Huawei)

   o  Antonio Pastur (Telefonica I+D)

   o  Mohamed Boucadair (France Telecom)

   o  Michael Georgiades (Prime Tel)

   o  Minpeng Qi (China Mobile)

   o  Shaibal Chakrabarty (US Ignite)

   o  Nic Leymann (Deutsche Telekom)

   o  Anil Lohiya (Juniper)

   o  David Qi (Bloomberg)

   o  Hyoungshick Kim (Sungkyunkwan University)

   o  Jung-Soo Park (ETRI)

   o  Tae-Jin Ahn (Korea Telecom)

   o  Se-Hui Lee (Korea Telecom)

Authors' Addresses

   Susan Hares
   Huawei
   7453 Hickory Hill
   Saline, MI  48176
   United States of America

   Phone: +1-734-604-0332
   Email: shares@ndzh.com





Hares, et al.                 Informational                    [Page 28]
^L
RFC 8192           I2NSF Problem Statement & Use Cases         July 2017


   Diego R. Lopez
   Telefonica I+D
   Don Ramon de la Cruz, 82
   Madrid  28006
   Spain

   Email: diego.r.lopez@telefonica.com


   Myo Zarny
   vArmour
   800 El Camino Real, Suite 3000
   Mountain View, CA  94040
   United States of America

   Email: myo@varmour.com


   Christian Jacquenet
   France Telecom
   Rennes, 35000
   France

   Email: Christian.jacquenet@orange.com


   Rakesh Kumar
   Juniper Networks
   1133 Innovation Way
   Sunnyvale, CA  94089
   United States of America

   Email: rakeshkumarcloud@gmail.com


   Jaehoon Paul Jeong
   Department of Software
   Sungkyunkwan University
   2066 Seobu-Ro, Jangan-Gu
   Suwon, Gyeonggi-Do  16419
   Republic of Korea

   Phone: +82 31 299 4957
   Fax:   +82 31 290 7996
   Email: pauljeong@skku.edu
   URI:   http://iotlab.skku.edu/people-jaehoon-jeong.php





Hares, et al.                 Informational                    [Page 29]
^L