Which IPSEC component is responsible for negotiating security associations and keys?

• A. AH
• B. IKE
• C. IP payload compression
• D. IPSEC

Answer: (B)

IKE handles negotiating security associations and exchanging the cryptographic keys used by IPsec. It runs the key exchange and mutual authentication processes, establishing the IPsec SAs that define how protected traffic will be handled by the other IPsec components. Once IKE sets up these SAs, ESP or AH apply encryption, integrity, and authentication according to the agreed parameters. The other items are involved in protection mechanisms or the overall framework but do not manage SA negotiation and key exchange themselves: AH provides data integrity and authentication, ESP provides confidentiality with optional integrity, and IP payload compression is about reducing payload size and does not handle key management.