R&D Spirits
Secure and Reliable Technology for
Network Services
Tomoo Fukazawa
Executive Manager
Secure Communication ProjectNTT Information Sharing Platform Laboratories

While the Internet has become an indispensable infrastructure of society, network security is
being threatened by an ever increasing level of antisocial and criminal activities. The Secure
Communication Project at NTT Information Sharing Platform Laboratories is researching anddeveloping countermeasures from the viewpoint of a telecommunication carrier. We sat downwith Tomoo Fukazawa, Executive Manager of this project, to find out what problems must be
solved to provide secure and reliable network services.

Pursuing a secure communication
infrastructure from three points of view—Dr. Fukazawa, what research theme are you currently working on?
In the Secure Communication Project, the purposeof our research is to enable secure and reliable network
construction and service provision across all layers. In
order to provide secure communication network, it is
not enough to take partial measures dealing only with
the network or only with operations. Recognizing thatthe partial approach is inadequate, we formed a teamof about 50 researchers and organized them into threemain groups to address virtual private network, architecture of secure network for the Internet, and operation issues through activities such as technology development and standardization toward secure communication. My role is to manage all of these activities.
—What research in particular is each of these groups
involved in?
Well, at the network level, we are researching technology for providing next-generation virtual private
networks (VPNs) called Global Area Virtual Ethernet
Services (GAVES) (Fig. 1). Furthermore, as part of a
National Institute of Information and Communica6

tions Technology (NICT) project overseen by the
Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, we
are working mostly on band-width mapping andswitching control in research on a next-generation
terabit-class supernetworking architecture. Next, atthe secure network for the Internet level, we aredeveloping technology to counteract distributed
denial of service (DDoS) attacks. We called this technology “MovingFirewall” [1] (Fig. 2) as it aims toactivate firewall functions across the entire network.
Finally, at the operations level, we have organized acomputer security incident response team (CSIRT)
called NTT-CERT (Fig. 3) that responds to security
incidents, collects and disseminates security-related
information, and performs various educational services in addition to linking up with other CSIRT
teams throughout the world.
—What are some of the technical features of thisresearch?
Speaking of GAVES, we are promoting an extension of wide-area Ethernet services that excels in scalability, maintainability, and operability. In this regard,a network may be an “L2” (layer 2) type referring to
the Ethernet network or an “L3” type referring to an
IP (Internet protocol) network. The GAVES scheme
targets an L2 network. While an L2 network possessNTT Technical Review

R&D Spirits

Provider backbone bridged network (802.1ah)
Providerbackbonebridges(802.1ah)

VLAN forcustomer A

802.1Q
bridge802.1Q
bridgeVLAN forcustomer B
VLAN forcustomer C

802.1adinterfaces

VLAN service network(802.1ad)

VLAN service network(802.1ad)
VLAN service network(802.1ad)Fig. 1. GAVES: 802.1ah provider backbone bridges.

es generality, it has poor scalability, and it is not an
end-to-end protocol, so network faults are difficult tohandle. In contrast, the GAVES scheme that we favor
can solve all of these problems in L2-network operation. This protocol is also compatible with the IEEE
P802.1Q and IEEE P802.1ad L2 standards and allows
existing services to function without modification.
We found that MovingFirewall is an effective countermeasure against DDoS attacks, which havebecome a significant threat to the Internet in recent
years. A DDoS attack is a sort of “time bomb” directed at a particular server. A virus planted on a computer by someone with malicious intentions spreads out
over the network and infects many servers prior to thetime of the attack. At a predefined moment, a huge
number of packets destined for the targeted server are
released in unison throughout the world thereby tying
up the services provided by that server. Starting in
about 2000, a number of well-known servers used for
e-commerce and computers systems became the target of DDoS attacks. A single server or computer,however, is unable to deal with an attack mechanismof this type. Moreover, current countermeasures arebasically manual in nature, which means that theytake time to implement. Therefore, a large amount ofdamage can occur before the attack is repulsed. We
developed MovingFirewall to automate the DDoSattack response. MovingFirewall is a system that protects the network and user servers from a DDoS attackby positioning itself at provider and data-center edge
nodes in an autonomous-distributed manner. When
MovingFirewall equipment senses an attack (Fig.
2(1)), it notifies upstream MovingFirewall equipment
Vol. 3 No. 2 Feb. 2005of the attack so that measures to control abnormal
traffic can be started and information about the attack
can be conveyed further upstream (Fig. 2(2)). In thisway, the source of the attack can be isolated and malicious packets can be cut off at the source (Fig. 2(3)).
This system ensures secure and reliable business
operations even on the basically open Internet used by
an extremely large number of diverse users. We are
already conducting field trials with demo equipment,
and since we are obtaining fairly good results, I
believe we can market MovingFirewall fairly soon.
In addition to the above system-development work,
NTT-CERT is constructing platform technology fromthe viewpoint of security-related operations. Specifically, this team is working to produce operation methods for maintaining security, provide training for
security technicians, evaluate commercial security
products, and collect and distribute security information. This buildup of operations-related know-how isof vital importance for actual on-site maintenance of
security.
—What problems do you face?
One is cost. If we were to pursue a secure and reliable network without limits, then the cost would
know no bounds either. However, that is not a realistic approach. One problem that must be addressed
when implementing security technology is how toefficiently construct an effective system while taking
cost into account. Another problem is speed. Unfortunately, network-threatening attacks are increasing
every year, and it is vital that we create a viable
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R&D Spirits

Legitimate user

Internet(2) Trace back

ISP(1) Automatic
detection of
DDoS attacks

STOP(3) Blocking
attacks

Computerused for
DDoS attack

STOP
ISP
DDoS packets

Target serverMovingFirewall device

Legitimate traffic

ISP: Internet service provider
DDoS: distributed denial of services

Legitimate user

Fig. 2. MovingFirewall: network device for defending against DDoS attacks.

response system as soon as possible.
More specific problems include phishing and spam
mail. Phishing is an act of fraud—it attempts toacquire personal information by impersonating an
actual e-commerce site. Spam mail, on the other
hand, is annoying unwanted mail that usually arrives
in large volumes much to the exasperation of thereceiver. But only by the simple traffic observationfrom the outside in the network layer, it is difficult tojudge either phishing or spam mail to be abnormal. In
contrast to viruses, these are threats that are difficult
to detect automatically on the system side. To combat
these problems, a more precise security mechanism
must be created through traffic analysis and control oranalysis that takes upper-layer protocol into account.
Another major problem is the development of security measures for future IP networks geared to telephone services.
—How do you think this research will develop in theyears to come?
Existing security measures are basically reactive—
they respond after the fact or defend against known
threats. But ideally, a defense should be mounted
before damage occurs and should also counter
unknown threats and attacks. For this reason, the next
step in security research is to determine how to sense
the signs of improper information distribution such as
viruses and spam mail and how to deal with them.
Since NTT is a carrier, the field of traffic analysis andcontrol is one of our specialties. I myself, have a deep
interest in this field, and naturally would like to8research and develop solutions in this area making
full use of the advantages that we have as a carrier. I
would also like to make proposals on how networks
should be constructed from the viewpoint of security.

The birth of standardization activities
through linkups with other companies—Dr. Fukazawa, what are some current R&D trends
in security technology?
Individual security technologies such as anti-virus
software are being increasingly developed by software developers and other enterprises. And in termsof anti-DDoS systems like MovingFirewall, dedicated equipment for individual users and closed equipment for single providers is being developed in the
United States. Other anti-DDoS technology, however,does not include network tracing techniques, so itcannot protect the network and servers from an attackin an efficient and speedy manner. At the researchlevel, we are confident that our network-tracing system is superior, but I must admit that, at the businesslevel, American venture companies are strong, and I
think we are just about to face serious competition.
—How does security research at NTT stand out?
I think that no research elsewhere, except for carriers, considers all aspects from the network layer tooperations. Considering that the Internet has becomea social infrastructure, security must be treated as
indispensable. Of course, individual security meaNTT Technical Review

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FIRST(Forum of Incident Response and Security Team)IIJ–SECT

CERT/CCNTT
Group
Companies

NTT–CERTJPCERT/
CC
P
O
C
·
·
·

Incident handling
Artifact handling
Vulnerability handling
CSIRT development
support education

P
O
C
·
·
·

Information dissemination

Other
CSIRT

Research & development
Evaluation & verification
Information sharing system
Public monitoring
··
·

CSIRT
CSIRT
CSIRT

Other security
R&D
organization

CSIRT: Computer Security Incident Response Team
POC: point of contact

Fig. 3. Activity of NTT-CERT.

sures are also necessary, but from here on, failure toadopt a more comprehensive approach will make it
all the more difficult to ensure network security. As acarrier, NTT is obligated to ensure secure and reliablecommunications by combining network, platform,
and operation technologies. This and NTT’s ability todemonstrate the effectiveness of its security measures
are special features of our research.
—Are you collaborating with any other companies or
research institutions?
Since NTT network has a variety of connectivities
to global network, we intend to form alliances as theneed arises. For example, since the effectiveness ofMovingFirewall against DDoS attacks increases as
more MovingFirewall equipment is installed in the
network, we are considering opening up this systemand spreading it to router manufacturers and Internet
service providers. NTT-CERT is also moving toward
international tie-ups and became a member of theForum of Incident Response and Security Teams(FIRST), the most major international forum ofexpert teams, in January of this year.
—Are you involved with any other international
activities such as for standardization?
Yes. We are promoting the standardization of
GAVES. Standardization work on the GAVES systemin the IEEE802.1 Working Group formally began in
January 2005 to develop P802.1ah Provider Backbone Bridges technology for carrier-class network
services.
Vol. 3 No. 2 Feb. 2005

A research career viewing “communication”
from many different angles—What made you decide to pursue computer and network research?
Well, in the first place, I found the computer to be agood tool for achieving something that had not been
done before, and I also remember the interest I felt inthe systematic aspects of computing. For example,
some processes that take a long time and a lot of effort
to perform in practice can be simulated on a computer relatively easily and immediately. And if we connect computers in a network, we can accomplish evengreater things. At university, this interest led me toresearch high-speed parallel computing based on
autonomous distributed control and network-oriented
service base system based on inter-computer cooperation.
—Please tell us something about your research history?
At NTT, I was originally assigned to NTT LSI Laboratories where I researched massively parallelmachines for scientific computing. At that time, I was
involved with all aspects of design and developmentfrom processor development to system design andOS/application development. I even developed a simulator for designing new high-speed devices.
After that work, I continued to research computersof this type for a while, but during this research, I ran
up against a big wall in relation to system testing. My
research approach here was to design a system basedon my ideas and then construct prototype hardware
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R&D Spirits

and software. At that time, however, things didn’t
always work out as designed. Of course, trial anderror is an integral part of the research process, anddiscovering that something doesn’t work is not bad in
itself. But as a system becomes increasingly complex, it can be extremely difficult to find out what partof the system is not working. Separating design-level
and implementation-level factors is very time consuming, which can cause the development period tolast longer than planned. It is also inherently difficult
to verify and secure correct operation in a new andadvanced prototype device. This situation caused memuch distress, but during that time, I was fortunately
sent to Stanford University where I studied an assertion-based system-test technique (where an “assertion” represents desired behavior) for massively parallel machines under the supervision of a hardwaretesting specialist, Professor McCluskey. That was in
1989 and 1990. After returning to NTT LSI Laboratories in 1991, I incorporated hardware test techniques based on my Stanford studies into my own
research and applied them to LSIs such as MPEG
chips and field programmable gate arrays.
However, as processor and test technology matured,and as a debate began as to how far NTT as a carrier
should pursue hardware technology, I found myself
being transferred to the NTT Optical Network system
Laboratories in 1995. Here, I was able to contribute toNTT’s primary business and work on network technology that I had also researched at university. At
these laboratories, I researched, in particular, nextgeneration network architecture, high-speed routers,
and realtime packet filters. Then, in 1998, I wasloaned out to NTT Phoenix Communications Network, Inc. (now NTT Bizlink), an NTT group company. I returned to NTT Laboratories once again in
July 2004 and have since been engaged in my present
research at NTT Information Sharing Platform Laboratories.
—What kind of work did you do at NTT Phoenix
Communications Network?
I developed and implemented services for multipoint videoconferencing systems. I’d like to point out
here that network architecture research is usually centered on IP networks, and while IP networks havevery high generality, the required quality of service(QoS) depends on the application. In particular, a few
packet loss or delay could be acceptable in some cases
but the loss of even one packet is unacceptable in others. For this reason, I researched means of achieving
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an “adaptive network” that could provide various QoSlevels depending on the application or service. For
example, while IP excels at storing and forwarding alarge amount of mail, it is weak at handling realtime
communications as in telephone services. This problem is further compounded when adding images as invideophones. At NTT Phoenix, constructing an IP
network for such realtime bidirectional communications was a problem in itself. But in addition, we hadabsolutely no idea what level of quality provided by
the network would be satisfactory to customers interms of actual services. While trying hard to figureout what level of network quality to target, I had thefortunate opportunity of learning about actual services and customer needs at a site providing videoconferencing services. As chief technical officer, I
was instrumental in launching an ISDN-based videoconferencing service, in constructing for videoconferencing a high-quality IP network originally devised at
NTT Laboratories, and in developing services that
could interconnect IP, ISDN, and voice telephones(ISDN: integrated services digital network).
—What has been your goal in these various types ofresearch?
My goal has been “communication”, that is to connect various types of things. In videoconferencing,for example, IP, ISDN, and voice telephones—whatever customers want to use—are all interconnected.
To achieve this sort of communication, I came to viewthe network from various angles including software,
hardware, and service. And for a network in which
various things can communicate freely, I noticed that
security and reliability are of prime concern, which is
why I am now involved with research and development related to security issues. This multifaceted
approach via software, hardware, and the network is
enabling me to view the research of diverse security
issues in a comprehensive manner. In my research
career, some things turned out as I had intended andsome things did not, but all in all, I believe my career
has developed quite reasonably for the research of
secure and reliable communication.

NTT: Where actual services produce
a treasure house of research themes—Dr. Fukazawa, what are your aspirations for the future?
Well, as I’ve only begun my security research, I
intend to keep with it for the time being. I am also
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R&D Spirits

interested in researching services that integrate mypast research on “communication” with my current
research on “security and reliability.” And instead ofsome magnificent system constructed under a longterm plan, I would rather work on creating adaptivetype systems or services that will be provided inaccordance with customer or community needs.
And if I may add one more thing from a totally different perspective, I would like to disseminate theresults of our research not only to the framework of
NTT and Japan, but also to a world-wide audience. I
would like to produce as many Japan-originating
global standards as possible, and succeeding in establishing even a few would be great.
—What do you find interesting and worthwhile in
R&D work?
Making possible something that has never existed
or been achieved before on my own strength or thestrength of our team. This is not simply because of thesatisfying feeling of achievement that we feel uponsolving a difficult problem, but also because of thecontribution we can make to society. I feel that R&D
work becomes most worthwhile when self realizationand social contribution coincide.
—What is your ultimate goal as a researcher anddeveloper?
I would like to be an engineer who has his own
views within his own specialized field, whatever thegoal may be. And from a position within management, where I am becoming more involved with workthat is not pure R&D, I would still like to be able toview things from an engineer’s perspective and givemy technical opinions.
—In your mind, what kind of working environment
does NTT Laboratories offer?
It is an excellent place for self realization. Research
for my own purposes is connected to the further
development of NTT and society, and at the sametime, research for NTT and society is connected to
my individual growth. This structure is well developed and functioning well. In addition, many of mycolleagues and superiors are great problem-solvers
and talking with them keeps me brushing up myself.
I think NTT Laboratories provides a very favorable
environment for researchers.
But the most wonderful thing about NTT LaboratoVol. 3 No. 2 Feb. 2005

ries is its treasure house of research themes. Becauseof its connections to business companies, NTT Laboratories can always receive a variety of themes fromsites that provide actual services. These are sometimes themes that even researchers would not havethought of. For example, while systems for handlinge-mail and web communication were originally developed more than 10 years ago, developers might haveimagined the possibility of phishing and spam mail,but no serious attention was paid to these problems atthat time. As mail and web technologies become
widely used, these problems also become serious
today. Not only these problems, we have also found a
lot of advanced themes to provide secure and reliablecommunication service as the Internet becomes widely used as the social infrastrucure. You might say thatconnecting with the real service fields provides not somuch a treasure house but rather a wellspring ofresearch themes. In the sense of providing unexpected, newly advanced themes to work on, I would saythat NTT Laboratories is both a favorable environment for researchers and a thrilling place to work.
Reference[1]“Development of MovingFirewall, a System that Mitigates DDoS
Attacks at Upstream Nodes and Defends the Entire Network—Protecting Legitimate Traffic by Segregating Attack Traffic,” NTT Technical Review, Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 99–100, 2003.

Interviewee profile■ Career highlights
Tomoo Fukazawa received the B.E., M.E., and D.E.
degrees in electrical engineering from the Universityof Tokyo, Tokyo in 1980, 1982, and 1985, respectively. In 1985, he joined the Electrical Communication
Laboratories, NTT, Atsugi. He became a SeniorResearch Engineer in 1989 at NTT LSI Laboratories.
From 1989 to 1990, he was a Visiting Scholar at Stanford University, USA. In 1995, he became a SeniorResearch Engineer, Supervisor at NTT LSI Laboratories. He moved to NTT Optical Network System Laboratories as a Senior Research Engineer, Supervisor,
in 1997. In 1998, he moved to NTT Phoenix Communications Network, Inc. as the Director of Service andNetwork Operations. He became Executive Vice President of NTT Phoenix Communications Network, Inc.
(now NTT BizLink), in 1999. In 2003, he became
Chief Technical Officer of NTT BiZLink. In 2004 hemoved to NTT Information Sharing Platform Laboratories as the Executive Manager of Secure Communication Project.

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