Backscatter from the Data Plane --- Threats to Stability and Security in Information-Centric Networking

Information-centric networking approaches attract much attention in the ongoing search for a future communication paradigm of the Internet. Replacing the host-to-host connectivity by a data-oriented publish/subscribe service eases content distribution and authentication by concept, while eliminating all threats from unwanted traffic. However, current proposals to content routing heavily rely on data-driven protocol events and thereby introduce a strong coupling of the control to the data plane in the underlying routing infrastructure. In this paper, we analyze in theory and practical experiments threats to the stability and performance of the content distribution system. We discuss new attack vectors present in its current state of development, as well as possibilities and limitations to mitigate them