TNED: Trusted Network Environment for Devices

Abstract

Advances in 5G connectivity, edge computing, and cloud-native platforms have driven network environments to new levels of scale and dynamism, challenging conventional security mechanisms for secure communication. For this reason, we introduce the Trusted Network Environment for Devices (TNED). The TNED is an architecture designed to enhance security through centralised management and hardware-based integrity verification. A key component of the TNED is the Centrally Controlled IPsec (CCIPS), an SDN-based framework that streamlines IPsec deployment by adopting an IKE-less model. This approach eliminates peer-to-peer handshakes and reduces tunnel setup complexity by pre-computing and distributing cryptographic material from a central controller. To further protect sensitive keys and configurations, the TNED architecture integrates Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs) and supports Remote Attestation. The implementation leverages two heterogeneous TEE frameworks, Keystone and Enarx, to demonstrate portability and cross-platform trust enforcement.