Content-Based Protection and Release Architecture for Future NATO Networks

Future mission networks will require agility and flexibility in sharing information between heterogeneous users and terminals. We introduce the Content-based Protection and Release (CPR) model and present its applicability to current and future information sharing use cases in NATO. We present a service-oriented CPR architecture, which was developed at the NATO Communications and Information (NCI) Agency in order to address the evolving information sharing requirements in NATO operations. The paper highlights a number of important security services, which together comprise the CPR architecture. The central component is the CPR Enforcement Separation Service (CPRESS). CPRESS is supported by several other security services, such as the NATO Metadata Binding Service and the Content Inspection Policy Enforcement service. We describe these services and the interfaces between them. We also include recommendations based on experimentation with a CPR demonstrator developed at the NCI Agency, discuss related work, and identify possible future directions for research and development activities.