A case study of secure ATM switch booting

Abstract

This paper examines a few techniques for booting Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) switches securely over an insecure network. Each of these techniques assume a different trust model. This work is being carried out in the context of the Fairisle ATM switch environment. In this environment we are envisaging an open multi-service network where ATM switches are booted with third party software, possibly using a third party booting service. Hence we are faced with an increased security threat, compared with a closed network environment, in ensuring that the switch has been booted with authorised and authenticated boot code. In this paper, we examines these threats and presents three schemes of countering the threats.