Evolving a secure grid-enabled, distributed data warehouse : a standards-based perspective

As digital data-collection has increased in scale and number, it becomes an important type of resource serving a wide community of researchers. Cross-institutional data-sharing and collaboration introduce a suitable approach to facilitate those research institutions that are suffering the lack of data and related IT infrastructures. Grid computing has become a widely adopted approach to enable cross-institutional resource-sharing and collaboration. It integrates a distributed and heterogeneous collection of locally managed users and resources. This project proposes a distributed data warehouse system, which uses Grid technology to enable data-access and integration, and collaborative operations across multi-distributed institutions in the context of HV/AIDS research. This study is based on wider research into OGSA-based Grid services architecture, comprising a data-analysis system which utilizes a data warehouse, data marts, and near-line operational database that are hosted by distributed institutions. Within this framework, specific patterns for collaboration, interoperability, resource virtualization and security are included. The heterogeneous and dynamic nature of the Grid environment introduces a number of security challenges. This study also concerns a set of particular security aspects, including PKI-based authentication, single sign-on, dynamic delegation, and attribute-based authorization. These mechanisms, as supported by the Globus Toolkit’s Grid Security Infrastructure, are used to enable interoperability and establish trust relationship between various security mechanisms and policies within different institutions; manage credentials; and ensure secure interactions

On the Application of Identity-Based Cryptography in Grid Security

This thesis examines the application of identity-based cryptography (IBC) in designing security infrastructures for grid applications. In this thesis, we propose a fully identity-based key infrastructure for grid (IKIG). Our proposal exploits some interesting properties of hierarchical identity-based cryptography (HIBC) to replicate security services provided by the grid security infrastructure (GSI) in the Globus Toolkit. The GSI is based on public key infrastructure (PKI) that supports standard X.509 certificates and proxy certificates. Since our proposal is certificate-free and has small key sizes, it offers a more lightweight approach to key management than the GSI. We also develop a one-pass delegation protocol that makes use of HIBC properties. This combination of lightweight key management and efficient delegation protocol has better scalability than the existing PKI-based approach to grid security. Despite the advantages that IKIG offers, key escrow remains an issue which may not be desirable for certain grid applications. Therefore, we present an alternative identity-based approach called dynamic key infrastructure for grid (DKIG). Our DKIG proposal combines both identity-based techniques and the conventional PKI approach. In this hybrid setting, each user publishes a fixed parameter set through a standard X.509 certificate. Although X.509 certificates are involved in DKIG, it is still more lightweight than the GSI as it enables the derivation of both long-term and proxy credentials on-the-fly based only on a fixed certificate. We also revisit the notion of secret public keys which was originally used as a cryptographic technique for designing secure password-based authenticated key establishment protocols. We introduce new password-based protocols using identity-based secret public keys. Our identity-based techniques can be integrated naturally with the standard TLS handshake protocol. We then discuss how this TLS-like identity-based secret public key protocol can be applied to securing interactions between users and credential storage systems, such as MyProxy, within grid environments

Security in Distributed, Grid, Mobile, and Pervasive Computing

This book addresses the increasing demand to guarantee privacy, integrity, and availability of resources in networks and distributed systems. It first reviews security issues and challenges in content distribution networks, describes key agreement protocols based on the Diffie-Hellman key exchange and key management protocols for complex distributed systems like the Internet, and discusses securing design patterns for distributed systems. The next section focuses on security in mobile computing and wireless networks. After a section on grid computing security, the book presents an overview of security solutions for pervasive healthcare systems and surveys wireless sensor network security

Authentication and privacy in mobile web services

This thesis looks at the issue of authentication and privacy in mobile Web services. The work in this thesis builds on GSM and UMTS security framework to develop security protocols for mobile Web services environment. The thesis initially highlights some core principles of designing security protocols in such environment. The next two chapters look at the core technologies and building blocks in Web services systems and the core security features in mobile networks mainly GSM and UMTS. Registration and authentication were identified as security issues in federated systems. Proposed solutions were developed utilizing XML security mechanisms with SIM card security in GSM environment to address these issues. Also a novel system was proposed in which it is possible for a mobile user to securely authenticate and have full anonymity as far as the service providers are concerned; however it is possible for a trusted authority to reveal the identity of the user if he or she is suspected of illegal activities. The next section analyze in detail the Generic Authentication Architecture from 3GPP. Combining SAML with the Generic Authentication Architecture, we propose a novel "generic mobile Web service platform" for M-Commerce. Various solutions have been proposed to address privacy concern in distributed networks; the Platform for Privacy Preferences is one of the popular proposal, though it has many desirable features, it is not easy to enforce it. We argue that this limitation can be managed in federated system such as the Liberty Alliance framework. In the final chapter we make the case for using timestamp based authentication protocol in mobile Web service on the ground of efficiency gain