sRDMA -- Efficient NIC-based Authentication and Encryption for Remote Direct Memory Access

State-of-the-art remote direct memory access (RDMA) technologies have shown to be vulnerable against attacks by in-network adversaries, as they provide only a weak form of protection by including access tokens in each message. A network eavesdropper can easily obtain sensitive information and modify bypassing packets, affecting not only secrecy but also integrity. Tampering with packets can have drastic consequences. For example, when memory pages with code are changed remotely, altering packet contents enables remote code injection. We propose sRDMA, a protocol that provides efficient authentication and encryption for RDMA to prevent information leakage and message tampering. sRDMA uses symmetric cryptography and employs network interface cards to perform cryptographic operations. Additionally, we provide an implementation for sRDMA using programmable network adapters.