A framework for security requirements engineering

This paper presents a framework for security requirements elicitation and analysis, based upon the construction of a context for the system and satisfaction arguments for the security of the system. One starts with enumeration of security goals based on assets in the system. These goals are used to derive security requirements in the form of constraints. The system context is described using a problem-centered notation, then this context is validated against the security requirements through construction of a satisfaction argument. The satisfaction argument is in two parts: a formal argument that the system can meet its security requirements, and a structured informal argument supporting the assumptions expressed in the formal argument. The construction of the satisfaction argument may fail, revealing either that the security requirement cannot be satisfied in the context, or that the context does not contain sufficient information to develop the argument. In this case, designers and architects are asked to provide additional design information to resolve the problems

XRound : A reversible template language and its application in model-based security analysis

Successful analysis of the models used in Model-Driven Development requires the ability to synthesise the results of analysis and automatically integrate these results with the models themselves. This paper presents a reversible template language called XRound which supports round-trip transformations between models and the logic used to encode system properties. A template processor that supports the language is described, and the use of the template language is illustrated by its application in an analysis workbench, designed to support analysis of security properties of UML and MOF-based models. As a result of using reversible templates, it is possible to seamlessly and automatically integrate the results of a security analysis with a model. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved

Information Modeling for Automated Risk Analysis

Abstract. Systematic security risk analysis requires an information model which integrates the system design, the security environment (the attackers, security goals etc) and proposed security requirements. Such a model must be scalable to accommodate large systems, and support the efficient discovery of threat paths and the production of risk-based metrics; the modeling approach must balance complexity, scalability and expressiveness. This paper describes such a model; novel features include combining formal information modeling with informal requirements traceability to support the specification of security requirements on incompletely specified services, and the typing of information flow to quantify path exploitability and model communications security

Vulnerability Identification Errors in Security Risk Assessments

At present, companies rely on information technology systems to achieve their business objectives, making them vulnerable to cybersecurity threats. Information security risk assessments help organisations to identify their risks and vulnerabilities. An accurate identification of risks and vulnerabilities is a challenge, because the input data is uncertain. So-called ’vulnerability identification errors‘ can occur if false positive vulnerabilities are identified, or if vulnerabilities remain unidentified (false negatives). ‘Accurate identification’ in this context means that all vulnerabilities identified do indeed pose a risk of a security breach for the organisation. An experiment performed with German IT security professionals in 2011 confirmed that vulnerability identification errors do occur in practice. In particular, false positive vulnerabilities were identified by participants. In information security (IS) risk assessments, security experts analyze the organisation’s assets in order to identify vulnerabilities. Methods such as brainstorming, checklists, scenario-analysis, impact-analysis, and cause-analysis (ISO, 2009b) are used to identify vulnerabilities. These methods use uncertain input data for vulnerability identification, because the probabilities, effects and losses of vulnerabilities cannot be determined exactly (Fenz and Ekelhart, 2011). Furthermore, business security needs are not considered properly; the security checklists and standards used to identify vulnerabilities do not consider company-specific security requirements (Siponen and Willison, 2009). In addition, the intentional behaviour of an attacker when exploiting vulnerabilities for malicious purposes further increases the uncertainty, because predicting human behaviour is not just about existing vulnerabilities and their consequences (Pieters and Consoli, 2009), rather than preparing for future attacks. As a result, current approaches determine risks and vulnerabilities under a high degree of uncertainty, which can lead to errors. This thesis proposes an approach to resolve vulnerability identification errors using security requirements and business process models. Security requirements represent the business security needs and determine whether any given vulnerability is a security risk for the business. Information assets’ security requirements are evaluated in the context of the business process model, in order to determine whether security functions are implemented and operating correctly. Systems, personnel and physical parts of business processes, as well as IT processes, are considered in the security requirement evaluation, and this approach is validated in three steps. Firstly, the systematic procedure is compared to two best-practice approaches. Secondly, the risk result accuracy is compared to a best-practice risk-assessment approach, as applied to several real-world examples within an insurance company. Thirdly, the capability to determine risk more accurately by using business processes and security requirements is tested in a quasi-experiment, using security professionals. This thesis demonstrates that risk assessment methods can benefit from explicit evaluation of security requirements in the business context during risk identification, in order to resolve vulnerability identification errors and to provide a criterion for security

Security design analysis

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