The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Oct. 31, 2000
Filed:
Apr. 13, 1998
Patrick William Dowd, Columbia, MD (US);
John Thomas Mchenry, Odenton, MD (US);
Abstract
A network firewall security apparatus that enables a very high degree of traffic selectability yet avoids the usual performance penalty associated with firewalls. This approach is specific to high-speed circuit switched networks, Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) networks in particular. Security management is achieved through active connection management with authentication, better suited to the cell-based environment of high-speed circuit switched networks and to the mix of circuit switched traffic, where Internet Protocol (IP) datagrams comprise a fraction of the total traffic. The information in the signaling cells is used to determine which flows, rather than which individual cells, are allowed to pass through the firewall. A hierarchical method has been devised, in which the physical location of the interrelated components may be decoupled. Active connection management is applied in determining the approval of a connection based on signaling information and network state information. Once a flow has been validated, the cells associated with that flow are allowed to proceed through the firewall at line-speed with limited intervention and no performance degradation.