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1	Ordered Merkle Tree a Versatile Data-Structure for Security Kernels Mohanty, Somya Darsan 17 August 2013 (has links) Hidden undesired functionality is an unavoidable reality in any complex hardware or software component. Undesired functionality — deliberately introduced Trojan horses or accidentally introduced bugs — in any component of a system can be exploited by attackers to exert control over the system. This poses a serious security risk to systems — especially in the ever growing number of systems based on networks of computers. The approach adopted in this dissertation to secure systems seeks immunity from hidden functionality. Specifcally, if a minimal trusted computing base (TCB) for any system can be identifed, and if we can eliminate hidden functionality in the TCB, all desired assurances regarding the operation of the system can be guaranteed. More specifcally, the desired assurances are guaranteed even if undesired functionality may exist in every component of the system outside the TCB. A broad goal of this dissertation is to characterize the TCB for various systems as a set of functions executed by a trusted security kernel. Some constraints are deliberately imposed on the security kernel functionality to reduce the risk of hidden functionality inside the security kernel. In the security model adopted in this dissertation, any system is seen as an interconnection of subsystems, where each subsystem is associated with a security kernel. The security kernel for a subsystem performs only the bare minimal tasks required to assure the integrity of the tasks performed by the subsystem. Even while the security kernel functionality may be different for each system/subsystem, it is essential to identify reusable components of the functionality that are suitable for a wide range of systems. The contribution of the research is a versatile data-structure — Ordered Merkle Tree (OMT), which can act as the reusable component of various security kernels. The utility of OMT is illustrated by designing security kernels for subsystems participating in, 1) a remote fle storage system, 2) a generic content distribution system, 3) generic look-up servers, 4) mobile ad-hoc networks and 5) the Internet’s routing infrastructure based on the border gateway protocol (BGP). Authenticated Data-Structures Trustworthy Computing Security Kernels
2	AspectKE: Security aspects with program analysis for distributed systems Fan, Yang, Masuhara, Hidehiko, Aotani, Tomoyuki, Nielson, Flemming, Nielson, Hanne Riis* January 2010 (has links) Enforcing security policies to distributed systems is difficult, in particular, when a system contains untrusted components. We designed AspectKE, a distributed AOP language based on a tuple space, to tackle this issue. In AspectKE, aspects can enforce access control policies that depend on future behavior of running processes. One of the key language features is the predicates and functions that extract results of static program analysis, which are useful for defining security aspects that have to know about future behavior of a program. AspectKE* also provides a novel variable binding mechanism for pointcuts, so that pointcuts can uniformly specify join points based on both static and dynamic information about the program. Our implementation strategy performs fundamental static analysis at load-time, so as to retain runtime overheads minimal. We implemented a compiler for AspectKE, and demonstrate usefulness of AspectKE through a security aspect for a distributed chat system. aspect oriented programming program analysis security policies distributed systems tuple spaces Data processing Computer science Language Constructs and Features (E.2) Abstract data types Classes and objects (NEW) Concurrent programming structures Constraints (NEW) Control structures Coroutines Data types and structures Dynamic storage management Frameworks (NEW) Inheritance (NEW) Input/output Modules, packages Patterns (NEW) Polymorphism (NEW) Procedures, functions, and subroutines Recursion Security and Protection (K.6.5) Access controls Authentication Cryptographic controls Information flow controls Security kernels Verification Algebraic approaches to semantics Denotational semantics Operational semantics Partial evaluation (NEW) Process models (NEW) Program analysis (NEW)

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Ordered Merkle Tree a Versatile Data-Structure for Security Kernels

AspectKE*: Security aspects with program analysis for distributed systems