IETF's Security Area concerns itself with security implications at every layer of the Internet's architecture.

Key working groups under this area include:

• IPsec -- security for IP datagrams;
• MSEC -- security for multicast traffic;
• TLS -- security for a data stream, most popular use is web security;
• S/MIME -- security for email messages;
• PKIX -- Internet PKI standards; and
• LTANS -- long-term archive of digitally signed objects.

As stated in the charter for this area's IP Security Policy Working Group: "The rapid growth of the Internet and the need to control access to network resources (bandwidth, routers, hosts, etc.) has quickly generated the need for representing, discovering, exchanging and managing the policies that control access to these resources in a scalable, secured and reliable fashion.

"...Along the path of a communication, there may be administrative entities that need to impose policy constraints on entities such as security gateways and router filters. There also is a need for end-points of a security association and/or, for their respective administrative entities, to securely discover and negotiate access control information for the end hosts and for the policy enforcement points (security gateways, routers, etc.) along the path of the communication."

It should be noted that, because the security of the Internet has become a central concern, all work by the IETF now includes a security component.