Project No.: 5003-045309 01.05.96 - 31.12.99

Project leader: Dr. Urs Zurfluh, Institut für Informatik, University of Zurich
e-mail: zurfluh@ifi.unizh.ch

Name of project: SINUS: Secure use of online services

Partners: Dr. Andreas Gygi, SWITCH Head Office, Zurich

Funding: Sfr 565,300.-

Summary:
More and more companies see using the offerings of Internet services as an important business and advertising tool. Though the need to do so is not disputed, many security aspects still require attention. Above all, tying local networks securely into the insecure Internet has to be planned, implemented and monitored with great care. The problem is that mature methodical and technical means of doing this are largely lacking.

The present project seeks to examine the following questions in order to fill in existing security gaps on the organizational and technical levels:

• how to integrate a controlled access in an internal corporate network using online services with the company’s existing informatics security concept;
• how to embed a secured Internet access in the operating and security concept of a commercial company’s informatics resources;
• to what extent data packet filtering methods using a firewall system with a disclosed source code provide suitable means of detecting and averting attacks on a company network connected to the Internet;
• to what extent filtering strategies and alarm mechanisms are capable of reacting to attacks from the Internet in a flexible and appropriate way.

The purpose of the project is to specify a concept for the productive application of a firewall as the single most important element for secure Internet access and to use a firewall prototype currently under development by the SWITCH Foundation in a commercial environment.

In phase two, the knowledge gained will be generalized and gaps detected in that knowledge closed.

Cooperation:
The project is being operated by the institute of information technology in association with the SWITCH Foundation and with Telekurs AG which, as a service provider in the financial field, needs a high level of security.