Practical Experiences with ATM Encryption

CellCase is a commercial high-speed encryptor for Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) networks, available since 1997. It provides data confidentiality and entity authentication at the ATM layer, encrypting ATM cell payloads at rates from T1 (1.5 Mb/s) to OC-12c (622 Mb/s). Though deployed prior to the adoption of the ATM Forum Security Specification (1999), CellCase implements many of the mechanisms defined by that standard. In this paper, we describe how CellCase is deployed in actual networks, as well as customer experience with services such as counter-mode encryption, key exchange, and key update. Based on this experience, we also discuss possible changes to the ATM Forum specification.