TIM: A trust insurance mechanism for network function virtualization based on trusted computing

Abstract

As a new network architecture and key technology of 5G, Network Function Virtualization (NFV) is paid special attention in both industry and academia. In the context of NFV, Virtualized Network Functions (VNFs) located in different network computing platforms need collaborate to fulfill an expected networking service. Platform trust authentication and trusted collaboration should be highly ensured in order to support secure and trustworthy 5G mobile networks and wireless systems. However, such a mechanism is still missed in the literature. In this paper, we propose and develop a trust insurance mechanism, named TIM, based on Trusted Computing Platform (TCP) to realize trust authentication and achieve trusted collaboration among VNFs. Performance evaluation shows the effectiveness of TIM with regard to trust attestation accuracy, operation efficiency, and reasonable resource consumption.