Network security considerations for a new generation protocol UDT

Abstract

This paper evaluates security issues of the recently designed and implemented next generation protocol UDTv4 and offers two contributions to this area of research. Firstly, since UDT is a relatively new protocol, its security requirements have not been considered and explored. An examination investigating its security requirements in implementation is performed. The objective is to achieve a wide class of security methods used on existing mature protocols such as TCP and UDP, and other developed variants such as DCCP and STCP. This will assist investigators, designers, and users who consider and incorporate security when implementing UDT. Secondly, it aims to provide ways of securing applications and traffic using UDT protocol as well as making recommendations for adequate methods to address its security requirements. This will highlight UDT's security limitations and determine the threshold of feasible security schemes within the constraints under which UDT was designed and developed.