Computer and Information Security Handbook, 2nd Edition

Chapter 11

Internet Security

Jesse Walker,    Intel Corporation

The Internet, with all its accompanying complications, is integral to our lives. The security problems besetting the Internet are legendary and have become daily annoyances—and worse—to many users. Given the Net’s broad impact on our lives and the widespread security issues associated with it, it is worthwhile understanding what can be done to improve the immunity of our communications from attack.

The Internet can serve as a laboratory for studying network security issues; indeed, we can use it to study nearly every kind of security issue. We will pursue only a modest set of questions related to this theme. The goal of this chapter is to understand how cryptography can be used to ...