Design and implementation of a prototype to include security activities as part of application systems design

M.Com. (Information systems)This study has its origin in the growing need for information systems to be classified as 'secure'. With the increasing use of Computer Aided Software Engineering (CASE) tools in the design of application systems for commercial use, the risks that exist in terms of information security have become more prominent. The importance of considering security during the analysis and design of an information system, in other words, on a logical level, is increasing daily. Usually security features are added to existing application systems on an ad hoc basis. Security design activities should become such an integrated part of systems analysis and design activities on a logical level, that a complete integration of the two fields, security and computer aided software engineering, can be achieved. The aim of this dissertation is to study the literature to discover existing approaches to this integration, and to extract the strengths from them and expand on those strengths in order to compile an approach that is completely implementable in the form of a prototype data flow design tool (DFD tool). The proposed approach to the secure analysis and design of an application system of a logical level, which is presented in Chapter 4, is designed in conjunction with H.A.S. Booysen [Booysen, Kasselman, Eloff - 1994]. Existing CASE-tools have also been studied by the author to determine their current capabilities, especially in terms of security definition activities, but also in terms of their support to the systems analyst during the analysis and design phases of the project life cycle when developing a target application system

Large scale agile software development compliant to IEC 62443-4-1: artefact design and tool support

There has been a considerable increase in the use of agile methodologies over the last years. However, applying these methodologies can be challenging, particularly for industrial control systems that must obey to rigorous operational requirements through regulations and standards, and in particular cybersecurity requirements. The current work proposes a concept for a structured and systematic integration of security activities into a DevOps pipeline, with the ambition of pursuing the capability of both secure agile development and security compliant agile software engineering. The basis for this concept is the integration of the IEC 62443-4-1 (4-1) standard, which describes secure product development in industrial control systems, with a Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery pipeline specification. To achieve this, the security requirements, as described in the 4-1 standard, were mapped into a simple DevOps pipeline specification. As a result, all of the 4-1 activities were analysed and classified according to the possibility of being automated through tool support. Interviews with expert practitioners, from the fields of security compliance and agile software engineering, were conducted to evaluate the present work. Results have shown evidence about the possibility of providing tool support for the IEC 62443-4-1 standard and to specify a DevOps pipeline compliant to the 4-1 standard.Nos últimos anos houve um aumento considerável no uso de metodologias ágeis. No entanto, a aplicação destas metodologias pode ser um desafio, em especial para sistemas de controle industrial que têm a obrigação de obedecer a requisitos operacionais rigorosos através de regulamentos e normas, e em particular no âmbito da cibersegurança. Este trabalho propõe um conceito para uma integração estruturada e sistemática de actividades de segurança num pipeline de DevOps, com o intuito de alcançar ambas as capacidades de desenvolvimento ágil seguro e engenharia de software ágil em conformidade com segurança. A base para este conceito é a integração da norma IEC 62443-4-1 (4-1), que descreve o desenvolvimento seguro de produtos em ambientes de controle industrial, com um especificação de Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery. Para alcançar isto, foi feito um mapeamento de requisitos de segurança, de acordo com a descrição na norma 4-1, numa especificação simples de DevOps. Como resultado, todas as actividades da norma 4-1 foram analisadas e classificadas de acordo com a possibilidade de serem automatizadas através de suporte de ferramentas. Para avaliar o trabalho, foram realizadas entrevistas com profissionais especializados nas áreas de conformidade em segurança de TI’s e engenharia de software ágil. Os resultados mostram evidências sobre a possibilidade de fornecer suporte de ferramentas para a automatização da norma IEC 62443-4-1 e para a especificação um pipeline de DevOps conforme com a norma 4-1

Secure cloud micro services using Intel SGX

The micro service paradigm targets the implementation of large and scalable systems while enabling fine-grained service-level main- tainability. Due to their scalability, such architectures are frequently used in cloud environments, which are often subject to privacy and trust issues hindering the deployment of services dealing with sensitive data. In this paper we investigate the integration of trusted execution based on Intel Software Guard Extensions (SGX) into micro service applications. We present our Vert.x Vault, that supports SGX-based trusted execution in Eclipse Vert.x, a renowned tool-kit for writing reactive micro service applications. With our approach, secure micro services can run alongside regular ones, inter-connected via the Vert.x event bus to build large Vert.x applications that can contain multiple trusted components. Maintaining a full-edged Java Virtual Machine (JVM) inside an SGX enclave is impractical due to its complexity, less secure because of a large Trusted Code Base (TCB), and would suffer from performance penalties due to a high memory footprint. However, as Vert.x is written in Java, for a lean TCB this requires integration of native enclave C/C++ code into Vert.x, for which we propose the usage of Java Native Interface (JNI). Our Vert.x Vault provides the benefits of micro service architectures together with trusted execution to support privacy and data confidentiality for sensitive applications in the cloud at scale. In our evaluation we show the feasibility of our approach, buying a significantly increased level of security for a low performance overhead of only ≈ 8:7%

Security aspects in cloud based condition monitoring of machine tools

In the modern competitive environments companies must have rapid production systems that are able to deliver parts that satisfy highest quality standards. Companies have also an increased need for advanced machines equipped with the latest technologies in maintenance to avoid any reduction or interruption of production. Eminent therefore is the need to monitor the health status of the manufacturing equipment in real time and thus try to develop diagnostic technologies for machine tools. This paper lays the foundation for the creation of a safe remote monitoring system for machine tools using a Cloud environment for communication between the customer and the maintenance service company. Cloud technology provides a convenient means for accessing maintenance data anywhere in the world accessible through simple devices such as PC, tablets or smartphones. In this context the safety aspects of a Cloud system for remote monitoring of machine tools becomes crucial and is, thus the focus of this pape

Combined automotive safety and security pattern engineering approach

Automotive systems will exhibit increased levels of automation as well as ever tighter integration with other vehicles, traffic infrastructure, and cloud services. From safety perspective, this can be perceived as boon or bane - it greatly increases complexity and uncertainty, but at the same time opens up new opportunities for realizing innovative safety functions. Moreover, cybersecurity becomes important as additional concern because attacks are now much more likely and severe. However, there is a lack of experience with security concerns in context of safety engineering in general and in automotive safety departments in particular. To address this problem, we propose a systematic pattern-based approach that interlinks safety and security patterns and provides guidance with respect to selection and combination of both types of patterns in context of system engineering. A combined safety and security pattern engineering workflow is proposed to provide systematic guidance to support non-expert engineers based on best practices. The application of the approach is shown and demonstrated by an automotive case study and different use case scenarios.EC/H2020/692474/EU/Architecture-driven, Multi-concern and Seamless Assurance and Certification of Cyber-Physical Systems/AMASSEC/H2020/737422/EU/Secure COnnected Trustable Things/SCOTTEC/H2020/732242/EU/Dependability Engineering Innovation for CPS - DEIS/DEISBMBF, 01IS16043, Collaborative Embedded Systems (CrESt

Secure Integration of Desktop Grids and Compute Clusters Based on Virtualization and Meta-Scheduling

Reducing the cost for business or scientific computations, is a commonly expressed goal in today’s companies. Using the available computers of local employees or the outsourcing of such computations are two obvious solutions to save money for additional hardware. Both possibilities exhibit security related disadvantages, since the deployed software and data can be copied or tampered if appropriate countermeasures are not taken. In this paper, an approach is presented to let a local desktop machines and remote cluster resources be securely combined into a singel Grid environment. Solutions to several problems in the areas of secure virtual networks, meta-scheduling and accessing cluster schedulers from desktop Grids are proposed