ABSTRACT
Previous research on content distribution networks (CDNs) mainly focuses on improving system performance by deploying replication such that latency for data access could be reduced and bandwidth could be saved, especially when dealing with large amounts of data. Centrally-managed, trusted replicas are important characters in these traditional CDNs.
However, there is not enough attention given to the security of data in CDNs, even though data security is a crucial need for most Internet-based applications. Moreover, with the emergence of various network appliances and heterogeneous client environments, intermediaries are used for dynamic content delivery. Enforcing data security in such environments is more challenging than the traditional CDNs (client-server communication). Besides, new systems (such as publish/subscribe systems, peer-to-peer content distribution systems) are developed to meet different requirements of content distribution. Different mechanisms should be used in different systems to ensure content security.
4In this chapter, we first review the security concepts related to CDNs and then present several systems, focusing on how they enforce content security. Finally, we discuss the other challenges in CDNs.
