Service cloaking and authentication at data link layer

This paper discusses that there is significant benefit in providing stronger security at lower layers of network stack for network servers. It claims to reduce the attack vulnerability of a networked host by providing security mechanisms in a Network Interface Card (NIC). Dynamic access control mechanisms are implemented in hardware to limit access to the services only to authenticated hosts. To this end, it presents the architecture and implementation details of an advanced Secure NIC. It works alongside and augments existing security mechanisms, making deployment practical.