A Reconfigurable IDS Framework for Encrypted and Non-Encrypted Network Data in Supply Chains

Supply Chains (SCs) constitute the bloodline for modern economic trade and manufacturing infrastructures. Their uninterrupted functionality remains of paramount importance. Consequently, substantial endeavors have been channeled into fortifying their security facets. This work presents an innovative solution to implement and integrate a well-established Intrusion Detection System (IDS) within the Supply Chain ecosystems. The proposed framework embodies an ingenuous way for merging an open-source and widely used network intrusion detection algorithm, Snort algorithm, with reconfigurable hardware technology, Field-Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs). The adoption of FPGAs confers notable advantages, as they enable the complete alleviation of high IDS workloads from Supply Chain servers. Moreover, the proposed framework possesses the ability to simultaneously check both non-encrypted and encrypted data traffic, thereby markedly amplifying the operational scope of the IDS. The final system performance evaluation shows that the proposed framework achieves network workload processing rate up to sixfold greater and energy consumption reduced by up to threefold when compared to the best optimized official software solution.