A maioria das organizações depende atualmente de algum tipo de infraestrutura computacional para suportar as atividades críticas para o negócio. Esta dependência cresce com o aumento da capacidade dos sistemas informáticos e da confiança que se pode depositar nesses sistemas, ao mesmo tempo que aumenta também o seu tamanho e complexidade. Os sistemas transacionais, tipicamente centrados em bases de dados utilizadas para armazenar e gerir a informação de suporte às tarefas diárias, sofrem naturalmente deste mesmo problema. Assim, uma solução frequentemente utilizada para amenizar a dificuldade em lidar com a complexidade dos sistemas passa por delegar sob outras organizações o trabalho de desenvolvimento, ou mesmo por utilizar soluções já disponíveis no mercado (sejam elas proprietárias ou abertas). A diversidade de software e componentes alternativos disponíveis atualmente torna necessária a existência de testes padronizados que ajudem na seleção da opção mais adequada entre as alternativas existentes, considerando uma conjunto de diferentes características. No entanto, o sucesso da investigação em testes padronizados de desempenho e confiabilidade contrasta radicalmente com os avanços em testes padronizados de segurança, os quais têm sido pouco investigados, apesar da sua extrema relevância. Esta tese discute o problema da definição de testes padronizados de segurança, comparando-o com outras iniciativas de sucesso, como a definição de testes padronizados de desempenho e de confiabilidade. Com base nesta análise é proposta um modelo de base para a definição de testes padronizados de segurança. Este modelo, aplicável de forma genérica a diversos tipos de sistemas e domínios, define duas etapas principais: qualificação de segurança e teste padronizado de confiança. A qualificação de segurança é um processo que permite avaliar um sistema tendo em conta os aspectos e requisitos de segurança mais evidentes num determinado domínio de aplicação, dividindo os sistemas avaliados entre aceitáveis e não aceitáveis. O teste padronizado de confiança, por outro lado, consiste em avaliar os sistemas considerados aceitáveis de modo a estimar a probabilidade de existirem problemas de segurança ocultados ou difíceis de detectar (o objetivo do processo é lidar com as incertezas inerentes aos aspectos de segurança). O modelo proposto é demonstrado e avaliado no contexto de sistemas transacionais, os quais podem ser divididos em duas partes: a infraestrutura e as aplicações de negócio. Uma vez que cada uma destas partes possui objetivos de segurança distintos, o modelo é utilizado no desenvolvimento de metodologias adequadas para cada uma delas. Primeiro, a tese apresenta um teste padronizado de segurança para infraestruturas de sistemas transacionais, descrevendo e justificando todos os passos e decisões tomadas ao longo do seu desenvolvimento. Este teste foi aplicado a quatro infraestruturas reais, sendo os resultados obtidos cuidadosamente apresentados e analisados. Ainda no contexto das infraestruturas de sistemas transacionais, a tese discute o problema da seleção de componentes de software. Este é um problema complexo uma vez que a avaliação de segurança destas infraestruturas não é exequível antes da sua entrada em funcionamento. A ferramenta proposta, que tem por objetivo ajudar na seleção do software básico para suportar este tipo de infraestrutura, é aplicada na avaliação e análise de sete pacotes de software distintos, todos alternativas tipicamente utilizadas em infraestruturas reais. Finalmente, a tese aborda o problema do desenvolvimento de testes padronizados de confiança para aplicações de negócio, focando especificamente em aplicações Web. Primeiro, é proposta uma abordagem baseada no uso de ferramentas de análise de código, sendo apresentadas as diversas experiências realizadas para avaliar a validade da proposta, incluindo um cenário representativo de situações reais, em que o objetivo passa por selecionar o mais seguro de entre sete alternativas de software para suportar fóruns Web. Com base nas análises realizadas e nas limitações desta proposta, é de seguida definida uma abordagem genérica para a definição de testes padronizados de confiança para aplicações Web. / Most organizations nowadays depend on some kind of computer infrastructure to manage business critical activities. This dependence grows as computer systems become more reliable and useful, but so does the complexity and size of systems. Transactional systems, which are database-centered applications used by most organizations to support daily tasks, are no exception. A typical solution to cope with systems complexity is to delegate the software development task, and to use existing solutions independently developed and maintained (either proprietary or open source). The multiplicity of software and component alternatives available has boosted the interest in suitable benchmarks, able to assist in the selection of the best candidate solutions, concerning several attributes. However, the huge success of performance and dependability benchmarking markedly contrasts with the small advances on security benchmarking, which has only sparsely been studied in the past. his thesis discusses the security benchmarking problem and main characteristics, particularly comparing these with other successful benchmarking initiatives, like performance and dependability benchmarking. Based on this analysis, a general framework for security benchmarking is proposed. This framework, suitable for most types of software systems and application domains, includes two main phases: security qualification and trustworthiness benchmarking. Security qualification is a process designed to evaluate the most obvious and identifiable security aspects of the system, dividing the evaluated targets in acceptable or unacceptable, given the specific security requirements of the application domain. Trustworthiness benchmarking, on the other hand, consists of an evaluation process that is applied over the qualified targets to estimate the probability of the existence of hidden or hard to detect security issues in a system (the main goal is to cope with the uncertainties related to security aspects). The framework is thoroughly demonstrated and evaluated in the context of transactional systems, which can be divided in two parts: the infrastructure and the business applications. As these parts have significantly different security goals, the framework is used to develop methodologies and approaches that fit their specific characteristics. First, the thesis proposes a security benchmark for transactional systems infrastructures and describes, discusses and justifies all the steps of the process. The benchmark is applied to four distinct real infrastructures, and the results of the assessment are thoroughly analyzed. Still in the context of transactional systems infrastructures, the thesis also addresses the problem of the selecting software components. This is complex as evaluating the security of an infrastructure cannot be done before deployment. The proposed tool, aimed at helping in the selection of basic software packages to support the infrastructure, is used to evaluate seven different software packages, representative alternatives for the deployment of real infrastructures. Finally, the thesis discusses the problem of designing trustworthiness benchmarks for business applications, focusing specifically on the case of web applications. First, a benchmarking approach based on static code analysis tools is proposed. Several experiments are presented to evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed metrics, including a representative experiment where the challenge was the selection of the most secure application among a set of seven web forums. Based on the analysis of the limitations of such approach, a generic approach for the definition of trustworthiness benchmarks for web applications is defined.

This thesis presents a quantitative evaluation of an operating system virtualization technology known as Solaris Containers or Solaris Zones, with a special emphasis on measuring the influence of a security technology known as Solaris Trusted Extensions. Solaris Zones is an operating system-level (OS-level) virtualization technology embedded in the Solaris OS that primarily provides containment of processes within the abstraction of a complete operating system environment. Solaris Trusted Extensions presents a specific configuration of the Solaris operating system that is designed to offer multi-level security functionality. Firstly, we examine the scalability of the OS with respect to an increasing number of zones. Secondly, we evaluate the performance of zones in three scenarios. In the first scenario we measure - as a baseline - the performance of Solaris Zones on a 2-CPU core machine in the standard configuration that is distributed as part of the Solaris OS. In the second scenario we investigate the influence of the number of CPU cores. In the third scenario we evaluate the performance in the presence of a security configuration known as Solaris Trusted Extensions. To evaluate performance, we calculate a number of metrics using the AIM benchmark. We calculate these benchmarks for the global zone, a non-global zone, and increasing numbers of concurrently running non-global zones. We aggregate the results of the latter to compare aggregate system performance against single zone performance. The results of this study demonstrate the scalability and performance impact of Solaris Zones in the Solaris OS. On our chosen hardware platform, Solaris Zones scales to about 110 zones within a short creation time (i.e., less than 13 minutes per zone for installation, configuration, and boot.) As the number of zones increases, the measured overhead of virtualization shows less than 2% of performance decrease for most measured benchmarks, with one exception: the benchmarks for memory and process management show that performance decreases of 5-12% (depending on the sub-benchmark) are typical. When evaluating the Trusted Extensions-based security configuration, additional small performance penalties were measured in the areas of Disk/Filesystem I/O and Inter Process Communication. Most benchmarks show that aggregate system performance is higher when distributing system load across multiple zones compared to running the same load in a single zone.

The goal of this doctoral thesis is to analyse some legal, technical and economic aspects, related to the development of e-Government in the Czech Republic and to draw some general prerequisites for a successful development of e-Government services. The work contains a review of the legislation, which has a direct or indirect impact on the development of e-Government. It concerns mainly the digital signature legislation, public administration information systems, general regulations on administrative procedures and some special regulations. In this thesis there are analysed in detail currently implemented e-Government projects, especially the public administration contact points, the data inboxes, the authorized documents' conversion and the basic registers of public administration. Special attention is also devoted to the questions of personal data security in information systems. Possible effects of e-Government are evaluated with regard to recipients of public administration, particularly to citizens and legal persons. Measurable indicators (metrics) are proposed to measure the progress of individual e-Government projects, along with the procedure of their calculation. This thesis concludes that for reliable measurement of efficiency, it is necessary to identify some quantifiable indicators on the cost side as well as and on the benefits side. These indicators should be oriented to the cost aspect as well as to the specific objectives of public administration. As for the methodology, in the thesis there are used the usual methods of research in the field of legal science. Concretely used methods are the process analysis, cost analysis and metrics analysis, whose methodology is based primarily on the economics, management and information management. Furthermore, the case studies have been used to fulfil the objectives of the thesis and to verify the thesis' hypotheses.

No description available.

Information Technology (IT) is a cornerstone of our modern society and essential for governments' management of public services, economic growth and national security. Consequently, it is of importance that IT systems are kept in a dependable and secure state. Unfortunately, as modern IT systems typically are composed of numerous interconnected components, including personnel and processes that use or support it (often referred to as an enterprise architecture), this is not a simple endeavor. To make matters worse, there are malicious actors who seek to exploit vulnerabilities in the enterprise architecture to conduct unauthorized activity within it. Various models have been proposed by academia and industry to identify and mitigate vulnerabilities in enterprise architectures, however, so far none has provided a sufficiently comprehensive scope. The contribution of this thesis is a modeling framework and calculation engine that can be used as support by enterprise decision makers in regard to cyber security matters, e.g., chief information security officers. In summary, the contribution can be used to model and analyze the vulnerability of enterprise architectures, and provide mitigation suggestions based on the resulting estimates. The contribution has been tested in real-world cases and has been validated on both a component level and system level; the results of these studies show that it is adequate in terms of supporting enterprise decision making. This thesis is a composite thesis of eight papers. Paper 1 describes a method and dataset that can be used to validate the contribution described in this thesis and models similar to it. Paper 2 presents what statistical distributions that are best fit for modeling the time required to compromise computer systems. Paper 3 describes estimates on the effort required to discover novel web application vulnerabilities. Paper 4 describes estimates on the possibility of circumventing web application firewalls. Paper 5 describes a study of the time required by an attacker to obtain critical vulnerabilities and exploits for compiled software. Paper 6 presents the effectiveness of seven commonly used automated network vulnerability scanners. Paper 7 describes the ability of the signature-based intrusion detection system Snort at detecting attacks that are more novel, or older than its rule set. Finally, paper 8 describes a tool that can be used to estimate the vulnerability of enterprise architectures; this tool is founded upon the results presented in papers 1-7. / Informationsteknik (IT) är en grundsten i vårt moderna samhälle och grundläggande för staters hantering av samhällstjänster, ekonomisk tillväxt och nationell säkerhet. Det är därför av vikt att IT-system hålls i ett tillförlitligt och säkert tillstånd. Då moderna IT-system vanligen består av en mångfald av olika integrerade komponenter, inklusive människor och processer som nyttjar eller stödjer systemet (ofta benämnd organisationsövergripande arkitektur, eller enterprise architecture), är detta tyvärr ingen enkel uppgift. För att förvärra det hela så finns det även illvilliga aktörer som ämnar utnyttja sårbarheter i den organisationsövergripande arkitekturen för att utföra obehörig aktivitet inom den. Olika modeller har föreslagits av den akademiska världen och näringslivet för att identifiera samt behandla sårbarheter i organisationsövergripande arkitekturer, men det finns ännu ingen modell som är tillräckligt omfattande. Bidraget presenterat i denna avhandling är ett modelleringsramverk och en beräkningsmotor som kan användas som stöd av organisatoriska beslutsfattare med avseende på säkerhetsärenden. Sammanfattningsvis kan bidraget användas för att modellera och analysera sårbarheten av organisationsövergripande arkitekturer, samt ge förbättringsförslag baserat på dess uppskattningar. Bidraget har testats i fallstudier och validerats på både komponentnivå och systemnivå; resultaten från dessa studier visar att det är lämpligt för att stödja organisatoriskt beslutsfattande. Avhandlingen är en sammanläggningsavhandling med åtta artiklar. Artikel 1 beskriver en metod och ett dataset som kan användas för att validera avhandlingens bidrag och andra modeller likt detta. Artikel 2 presenterar vilka statistiska fördelningar som är bäst lämpade för att beskriva tiden som krävs för att kompromettera en dator. Artikel 3 beskriver uppskattningar av tiden som krävs för att upptäcka nya sårbarheter i webbapplikationer. Artikel 4 beskriver uppskattningar för möjligheten att kringgå webbapplikationsbrandväggar. Artikel 5 beskriver en studie av den tid som krävs för att en angripare skall kunna anskaffa kritiska sårbarheter och program för att utnyttja dessa för kompilerad programvara. Artikel 6 presenterar effektiviteten av sju vanligt nyttjade verktyg som används för att automatiskt identifiera sårbarheter i nätverk. Artikel 7 beskriver förmågan av det signatur-baserade intrångsdetekteringssystemet Snort att upptäcka attacker som är nyare, eller äldre, än dess regeluppsättning. Slutligen beskriver artikel 8 ett verktyg som kan användas för att uppskatta sårbarheten av organisationsövergripande arkitekturer; grunden för detta verktyg är de resultat som presenteras i artikel 1-7. / <p>QC 20140203</p>

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico / The lack of an alignment among concepts that involve security risk management has caused the stalemate in the adoption of security risks management models for organizations. There are several standards and risk management methodologies, having a large set of concepts, defined in many ways. In order to get an alignment of concepts and establish a suitable vocabulary for risk management, the conceptual modeling was used within the realm of security risks management. By using the conceptual modeling it was possible to abstract concepts and obtain a conceitual model for the specification of security risks management, called GRiSSI - Gestão de Riscos de Segurança de Sistemas de Informação (Information Systems Security Risk Management). Some metrics were also proposed for the identified concepts in the conceitual model, to make further improvements and corrections in security processes. The proposed conceitual model was validated through the application audits and metrics for UML models. / A falta de alinhamento entre os conceitos que envolvem a gestão de riscos de segurança tem causado um impasse na adoção de modelos de gestão de riscos de segurança pelas organizações. Há diversas normas e metodologias de gestão de riscos e de segurança que possuem uma série de conceitos e são definidos de várias maneiras. Para obter o alinhamento desses conceitos e estabelecer um vocabulário próprio para a gestão de riscos, este trabalho utilizou a modelagem conceitual para o domínio da gestão de riscos de segurança. Com a modelagem conceitual foi possível abstrair esses conceitos e obter um modelo conceitual para a especificação da gestão de riscos de segurança, chamado GRiSSI (Gestão de Riscos de Segurança de Sistemas de Informação). Algumas métricas também foram propostas para os conceitos identificados no modelo conceitual, com o intuito de contribuir para promover melhorias e efetuar correções em processos de segurança. O modelo conceitual proposto foi validado por meio da verificação feita como a aplicação de auditorias e métricas para modelos UML.

Much of the confusion about the effectiveness of information security programs concerns not only how to measure, but also what to measure — an issue of equivocality. Thus, to lower uncertainty for improved decision-making, it is first essential to reduce equivocality by defining, expanding, and clarifying risk factors so that metrics, the "necessary measures," can be unambiguously applied. We formulate a system that (1) allows threats to be accurately measured and tracked, (2) enables the impacts and costs of successful threats to be determined, and (3) aids in evaluating the effectiveness and return on investment of countermeasures. We then examine the quality of controls implemented to mitigate cyber risk and study how effectively they reduce the likelihood of security incidents. Improved control quality was shown to reduce the likelihood of security incidents, yet the results indicate that investing in maximum quality is not necessarily the most efficient use of resources. The next manuscript expands the discussion of cyber risk management beyond single organizations by surveying perceptions and experiences of risk factors related to 3rd parties. To validate and these findings, we undertake in an in-depth investigation of nearly 1000 real-world data breaches occurring over a ten-year period. It provides a robust data model and rich database required by a decision support system for cyber risk in the extended enterprise. To our knowledge, it is the most comprehensive field study ever conducted on the subject. Finally, we incorporate these insights, data, and factors into a simulation model that enables us study the transfer of cyber risk across different supply chain configurations and draw important managerial implications. / Ph. D. / This dissertation comprises several manuscripts exploring various topics under the overall theme of cybersecurity risk in supply chains. The first topic presents the difficulties involved in measuring risk in the cybersecurity domain and discusses how this hinders firms in making justified decisions and taking appropriate actions to manage risk. We then examine the quality of controls implemented to mitigate cyber risk and study how effectively they reduce the likelihood of security incidents. Next, we survey firms to explore perspectives and experiences related to security incidents involving their supply chain partners. To validate these perspectives, we then analyze data collected from over 900 forensic investigations of real-world breaches. This provides excellent visibility into how 3rd parties cause and contribute to incidents in supply chains and key risk factors. Finally, we incorporate these insights, data, and factors into a simulation model that enables us study the transfer of cyber risk across different supply chain configurations and draw important managerial implications.

Worms have been improved and a range of sophisticated techniques have been integrated, which make the detection and response processes much harder and longer than in the past. Therefore, in this thesis, a STAKCERT (Starter Kit for Computer Emergency Response Team) model is built to detect worms attack in order to respond to worms more efficiently. The novelty and the strengths of the STAKCERT model lies in the method implemented which consists of STAKCERT KDD processes and the development of STAKCERT worm classification, STAKCERT relational model and STAKCERT worm apoptosis algorithm. The new concept introduced in this model which is named apoptosis, is borrowed from the human immunology system has been mapped in terms of a security perspective. Furthermore, the encouraging results achieved by this research are validated by applying the security metrics for assigning the weight and severity values to trigger the apoptosis. In order to optimise the performance result, the standard operating procedures (SOP) for worm incident response which involve static and dynamic analyses, the knowledge discovery techniques (KDD) in modeling the STAKCERT model and the data mining algorithms were used. This STAKCERT model has produced encouraging results and outperformed comparative existing work for worm detection. It produces an overall accuracy rate of 98.75% with 0.2% for false positive rate and 1.45% is false negative rate. Worm response has resulted in an accuracy rate of 98.08% which later can be used by other researchers as a comparison with their works in future.

Main goal of this thesis is analyzing potential security risks of the SAP NetWeaver platform and identifying various vulnerabilities, that are results of poor system configuration, incorrect segregation of duties or insufficient patch management. Methodology for platform evaluation is defined by vulnerabilities, security requirements and controls will be created.

Worms have been improved and a range of sophisticated techniques have been integrated, which make the detection and response processes much harder and longer than in the past. Therefore, in this thesis, a STAKCERT (Starter Kit for Computer Emergency Response Team) model is built to detect worms attack in order to respond to worms more efficiently. The novelty and the strengths of the STAKCERT model lies in the method implemented which consists of STAKCERT KDD processes and the development of STAKCERT worm classification, STAKCERT relational model and STAKCERT worm apoptosis algorithm. The new concept introduced in this model which is named apoptosis, is borrowed from the human immunology system has been mapped in terms of a security perspective. Furthermore, the encouraging results achieved by this research are validated by applying the security metrics for assigning the weight and severity values to trigger the apoptosis. In order to optimise the performance result, the standard operating procedures (SOP) for worm incident response which involve static and dynamic analyses, the knowledge discovery techniques (KDD) in modeling the STAKCERT model and the data mining algorithms were used. This STAKCERT model has produced encouraging results and outperformed comparative existing work for worm detection. It produces an overall accuracy rate of 98.75% with 0.2% for false positive rate and 1.45% is false negative rate. Worm response has resulted in an accuracy rate of 98.08% which later can be used by other researchers as a comparison with their works in future. / Ministry of Higher Education, Malaysia and Universiti Sains Islam Malaysia (USIM)