Monitoring Networks through Multiparty Session Types

In large-scale distributed infrastructures, applications are realised through communications among distributed components. The need for methods for assuring safe interactions in such environments is recognized, however the existing frameworks, relying on centralised verification or restricted specification methods, have limited applicability. This paper proposes a new theory of monitored π-calculus with dynamic usage of multiparty session types (MPST), offering a rigorous foundation for safety assurance of distributed components which asynchronously communicate through multiparty sessions. Our theory establishes a framework for semantically precise decentralised run-time enforcement and provides reasoning principles over monitored distributed applications, which complement existing static analysis techniques. We introduce asynchrony through the means of explicit routers and global queues, and propose novel equivalences between networks, that capture the notion of interface equivalence, i.e. equating networks offering the same services to a user. We illustrate our static-dynamic analysis system with an ATM protocol as a running example and justify our theory with results: satisfaction equivalence, local/global safety and transparency, and session fidelity

Monitoring Networks through Multiparty Session Types

In large-scale distributed infrastructures, applications are realised through communications among distributed components. The need for methods for assuring safe interactions in such environments is recognised, however the existing frameworks, relying on centralised verification or restricted specification methods, have limited applicability. This paper proposes a new theory of monitored π-calculus with dynamic usage of multiparty session types (MPST), offering a rigorous foundation for safety assurance of distributed components which asynchronously communicate through multiparty sessions. Our theory establishes a framework for semantically precise decentralised run-time enforcement and provides reasoning principles over monitored distributed applications, which complement existing static analysis techniques. We introduce asynchrony through the means of explicit routers and global queues, and propose novel equivalences between networks, that capture the notion of interface equivalence, i.e. equating networks offering the same services to a user. We illustrate our static–dynamic analysis system with an ATM protocol as a running example and justify our theory with results: satisfaction equivalence, local/global safety and transparency, and session fidelity

Decentralized Identity and Access Management Framework for Internet of Things Devices

The emerging Internet of Things (IoT) domain is about connecting people and devices and systems together via sensors and actuators, to collect meaningful information from the devices surrounding environment and take actions to enhance productivity and efficiency. The proliferation of IoT devices from around few billion devices today to over 25 billion in the next few years spanning over heterogeneous networks defines a new paradigm shift for many industrial and smart connectivity applications. The existing IoT networks faces a number of operational challenges linked to devices management and the capability of devices’ mutual authentication and authorization. While significant progress has been made in adopting existing connectivity and management frameworks, most of these frameworks are designed to work for unconstrained devices connected in centralized networks. On the other hand, IoT devices are constrained devices with tendency to work and operate in decentralized and peer-to-peer arrangement. This tendency towards peer-to-peer service exchange resulted that many of the existing frameworks fails to address the main challenges faced by the need to offer ownership of devices and the generated data to the actual users. Moreover, the diversified list of devices and offered services impose that more granular access control mechanisms are required to limit the exposure of the devices to external threats and provide finer access control policies under control of the device owner without the need for a middleman. This work addresses these challenges by utilizing the concepts of decentralization introduced in Distributed Ledger (DLT) technologies and capability of automating business flows through smart contracts. The proposed work utilizes the concepts of decentralized identifiers (DIDs) for establishing a decentralized devices identity management framework and exploits Blockchain tokenization through both fungible and non-fungible tokens (NFTs) to build a self-controlled and self-contained access control policy based on capability-based access control model (CapBAC). The defined framework provides a layered approach that builds on identity management as the foundation to enable authentication and authorization processes and establish a mechanism for accounting through the adoption of standardized DLT tokenization structure. The proposed framework is demonstrated through implementing a number of use cases that addresses issues related identity management in industries that suffer losses in billions of dollars due to counterfeiting and lack of global and immutable identity records. The framework extension to support applications for building verifiable data paths in the application layer were addressed through two simple examples. The system has been analyzed in the case of issuing authorization tokens where it is expected that DLT consensus mechanisms will introduce major performance hurdles. A proof of concept emulating establishing concurrent connections to a single device presented no timed-out requests at 200 concurrent connections and a rise in the timed-out requests ratio to 5% at 600 connections. The analysis showed also that a considerable overhead in the data link budget of 10.4% is recorded due to the use of self-contained policy token which is a trade-off between building self-contained access tokens with no middleman and link cost

Composable Distributed Access Control and Integrity Policies for Query-Based Wireless Sensor Networks

An expected requirement of wireless sensor networks (WSN) is the support of a vast number of users while permitting limited access privileges. While WSN nodes have severe resource constraints, WSNs will need to restrict access to data, enforcing security policies to protect data within WSNs. To date, WSN security has largely been based on encryption and authentication schemes. WSN Authorization Specification Language (WASL) is specified and implemented using tools coded in JavaTM. WASL is a mechanism{independent policy language that can specify arbitrary, composable security policies. The construction, hybridization, and composition of well{known security models is demonstrated and shown to preserve security while providing for modifications to permit inter{network accesses with no more impact on the WSN nodes than any other policy update. Using WASL and a naive data compression scheme, a multi-level security policy for a 1000-node network requires 66 bytes of memory per node. This can reasonably be distributed throughout a WSN. The compilation of a variety of policy compositions are shown to be feasible using a notebook{class computer like that expected to be performing typical WSN management responsibilities

A Taxonomy Of Aspect-Oriented Security

Aspect-Oriented Programming is gaining prominence,  particularly in the area of security. There are however no taxonomies available, that classify the proliferation of research done in the area of Aspect-Oriented Security. This paper attempts to categorize research outputs conducted in this area, and evaluate the usability of the aspect-oriented paradigm in terms of software security

Security Services Lifecycle Management in On-Demand Infrastructure Services Provisioning

require high-performance and complicated network and computer infrastructure to support distributed collaborating groups of researchers and applications that should be provisioned on-demand. The effective use and management of the dynamically provisioned services can be achieved by using the Service Delivery Framework (SDF) proposed by TeleManagement Forum that provides a good basis for defining the whole services life cycle management and supporting infrastructure services. The paper discusses conceptual issues, basic requirements and practical suggestions for provisioning consistent security services as a part of the general e-Science infrastructure provisioning, in particular Grid and Cloud based. The proposed Security Services Lifecycle Management (SSLM) model extends the existing frameworks with additional stages such as “Reservation Session Binding ” and “Registration and Synchronisation ” that specifically target such security issues as the provisioned resources restoration, upgrade or migration and provide a mechanism for remote executing environment and data protection by binding them to the session context. The paper provides a short overview of the existing standards and technologies and refers to the on-going projects and experience in developing dynamic distributed security services

A Blockchain-based Decentralized, Fair and Authenticated Information Sharing Scheme in Zero Trust Internet-of-Things

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from IEEE via the DOI in this recordData availability statement: The [code] data used to support the findings of this study have been deposited in the [IEEE DATAPORT] repository ([10.21227/rtmq-t937]).Internet-of-Things (IoT) are increasingly operating in the zero-trust environments where any devices and systems may be compromised and hence untrusted. In addition, data collected by and sent from IoT devices may be shared with edge computing systems in order to reduce the reliance on centralized (cloud) servers, leading to further security and privacy issues. To cope with these challenges, this paper proposes an innovative blockchain-enabled information sharing solution in zero-trust context to guarantee anonymity yet entity authentication, data privacy yet data trustworthiness, and participant stimulation yet fairness. This new solution is able to support filtering of fabricated information through smart contracts, effective voting, and consensus mechanisms, which can prevent unauthenticated participants from sharing garbage information. We also prove the proposed solution is secure in the universal composability framework, and further evaluate its performance over an ETH-based platform to demonstrate its utility.Foundation of Yunnan Key Laboratory of Blockchain Application TechnologyNational Natural Science Foundation of ChinaProvincial Key Research and Development Program of HubeiFoundation of Henan Key Laboratory of Network Cryptography TechnologyFoundation of Hubei Key Laboratory of Intelligent Geo-Information Processin