NEUTRON: Network Enforcement Using TRansctiONs

SIFT proposes Network Enforcement Using TRansactONs (NEUTRON) a dynamic fine-grained network enforcement policy design that captures network dependencies. NEUTRON closes the knowledge gap between mission needs and observed network traffic to increase mission network awareness. Then using that knowledge develops a revolutionary security enforcement policy based on network transactions. It reduces the attack surface of the network, by enforcing a least privilege policy in time. Only when a mission transaction requires network permissions are the network permissions active. NEUTRON also supports user-driven security policies to allow users to respond to unique tactical situations by temporarily changing the policy on their own authority. User-driven policies ensure that the added security NEUTRON provides does not come at the cost of reducing the tactical flexibility of network to the warfighter. NEUTRON includes novel research into a new kind of network enforcement policy and practical approaches to make the new technology easy to adopt by legacy enclaves.