Disseminating Security Updates at Internet Scale

Disseminating Security Updates at Internet Scale describes a new system, "Revere", that addresses these problems. "Revere" builds large-scale, self-organizing and resilient overlay networks on top of the Internet to push security updates from dissemination centers to individual nodes. "Revere" also sets up repository servers for individual nodes to pull missed security updates. This book further discusses how to protect this push-and-pull dissemination procedure and how to secure "Revere" overlay networks, considering possible attacks and countermeasures. Disseminating Security Updates at Internet Scale presents experimental measurements of a prototype implementation of "Revere" gathered using a large-scale oriented approach. These measurements suggest that "Revere" can deliver security updates at the required scale, speed and resiliency for a reasonable cost.

Disseminating Security Updates at Internet Scale will be helpful to those trying to design peer systems at large scale when security is a concern, since many of the issues faced by these designs are also faced by "Revere". The "Revere" solutions may not always be appropriate for other peer systems with very different goals, but the analysis of the problems and possible solutions discussed here will be helpful in designing a customized approach for such systems.

This book describes a new system, Revere, for warning computers about impending cyber attacks, and presents experimental measurements of a prototype implementation of Revere gathered using a large- scale oriented approach. Chapters examines topics such as assurance via redundancy, RBone, and real measurements under virtual topology. The book will be useful for researchers and practitioners in industry and graduate students in computer science, as well as those designing peer systems at large scale when security is a concern. Li is affiliated with the University of Oregon. Annotation (c)2003 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR