Design and implementation of a tunable encryption service for networked applications

To achieve the best possible QoS tradeoff between security and performance for networked applications, a tunable and differential treatment of security is required. In this paper, we present the design and implementation of a tunable encryption service. The proposed service is based on a selective encryption paradigm in which the applications can request a desired encryption level. Encryption levels are selected by the applications at the inception of sessions, but can be changed at any time during their lifetime. A prototype implementation is described along with an initial performance evaluation. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed service offers a high degree of security adaptiveness at a low cost.