Visually Managing IPsec

The United States Air Force relies heavily on computer networks to transmit vast amounts of information throughout its organizations and with agencies throughout the Department of Defense. The data take many forms, utilize different protocols, and originate from various platforms and applications. It is not practical to apply security measures specific to individual applications, platforms, and protocols. Internet Protocol Security (IPsec) is a set of protocols designed to secure data traveling over IP networks, including the Internet. By applying security at the network layer of communications, data packets can be secured regardless of what application generated the data or which protocol is used to transport it. However, the complexity of managing IPsec on a production network, particularly using the basic command-line tools available today, is the limiting factor to widespread deployment. This thesis explores several visualizations of IPsec data, evaluates the viability of using visualization to represent and manage IPsec, and proposes an interface for a visual IPsec management application to simplify IPsec management and make this powerful security option more accessible to the information warfighter.