About IPsec

IP security (IPsec) protocol is a framework of open standards that provides data confidentiality, data integrity, and data authentication between participating peers. It is developed by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). IPsec provides security services at the IP layer, including protecting one or more data flows between a pair of hosts, between a pair of security gateways, or between a security gateway and a host. The overall IPsec implementation is the latest version of RFC 2401. Cisco SAN-OS IPsec implements RFC 2402 through RFC 2410.

IPsec uses the Internet Key Exchange (IKE) protocol to handle protocol and algorithm negotiation and to generate the encryption and authentication keys used by IPsec. While IKE can be used with other protocols, its initial implementation is with the IPsec protocol. IKE provides authentication of the IPsec peers, negotiates IPsec security associations, and establishes IPsec keys. IKE uses RFCs 2408, 2409, 2410, and 2412, and additionally implements the draft-ietf-ipsec-ikev2-16.txt draft.

IPsec provides security for transmission of sensitive information over unprotected networks such as the Internet. IPsec acts at the network layer, protecting and authenticating IP packets between participating IPsec devices (peers).



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