Building the Infrastructure for Cloud Security

Computer scienc

AUTOMATED NETWORK SECURITY WITH EXCEPTIONS USING SDN

Campus networks have recently experienced a proliferation of devices ranging from personal use devices (e.g. smartphones, laptops, tablets), to special-purpose network equipment (e.g. firewalls, network address translation boxes, network caches, load balancers, virtual private network servers, and authentication servers), as well as special-purpose systems (badge readers, IP phones, cameras, location trackers, etc.). To establish directives and regulations regarding the ways in which these heterogeneous systems are allowed to interact with each other and the network infrastructure, organizations typically appoint policy writing committees (PWCs) to create acceptable use policy (AUP) documents describing the rules and behavioral guidelines that all campus network interactions must abide by. While users are the audience for AUP documents produced by an organization\u27s PWC, network administrators are the responsible party enforcing the contents of such policies using low-level CLI instructions and configuration files that are typically difficult to understand and are almost impossible to show that they do, in fact, enforce the AUPs. In other words, mapping the contents of imprecise unstructured sentences into technical configurations is a challenging task that relies on the interpretation and expertise of the network operator carrying out the policy enforcement. Moreover, there are multiple places where policy enforcement can take place. For example, policies governing servers (e.g., web, mail, and file servers) are often encoded into the server\u27s configuration files. However, from a security perspective, conflating policy enforcement with server configuration is a dangerous practice because minor server misconfigurations could open up avenues for security exploits. On the other hand, policies that are enforced in the network tend to rarely change over time and are often based on one-size-fits-all policies that can severely limit the fast-paced dynamics of emerging research workflows found in campus networks. This dissertation addresses the above problems by leveraging recent advances in Software-Defined Networking (SDN) to support systems that enable novel in-network approaches developed to support an organization\u27s network security policies. Namely, we introduce PoLanCO, a human-readable yet technically-precise policy language that serves as a middle-ground between the imprecise statements found in AUPs and the technical low-level mechanisms used to implement them. Real-world examples show that PoLanCO is capable of implementing a wide range of policies found in campus networks. In addition, we also present the concept of Network Security Caps, an enforcement layer that separates server/device functionality from policy enforcement. A Network Security Cap intercepts packets coming from, and going to, servers and ensures policy compliance before allowing network devices to process packets using the traditional forwarding mechanisms. Lastly, we propose the on-demand security exceptions model to cope with the dynamics of emerging research workflows that are not suited for a one-size-fits-all security approach. In the proposed model, network users and providers establish trust relationships that can be used to temporarily bypass the policy compliance checks applied to general-purpose traffic -- typically by network appliances that perform Deep Packet Inspection, thereby creating network bottlenecks. We describe the components of a prototype exception system as well as experiments showing that through short-lived exceptions researchers can realize significant improvements for their special-purpose traffic

Collaborative, Trust-Based Security Mechanisms for a National Utility Intranet

This thesis investigates security mechanisms for utility control and protection networks using IP-based protocol interaction. It proposes flexible, cost-effective solutions in strategic locations to protect transitioning legacy and full IP-standards architectures. It also demonstrates how operational signatures can be defined to enact organizationally-unique standard operating procedures for zero failure in environments with varying levels of uncertainty and trust. The research evaluates layering encryption, authentication, traffic filtering, content checks, and event correlation mechanisms over time-critical primary and backup control/protection signaling to prevent disruption by internal and external malicious activity or errors. Finally, it shows how a regional/national implementation can protect private communities of interest and foster a mix of both centralized and distributed emergency prediction, mitigation, detection, and response with secure, automatic peer-to-peer notifications that share situational awareness across control, transmission, and reliability boundaries and prevent wide-spread, catastrophic power outages

Junos OS Security Configuration Guide

This preface provides the following guidelines for using the Junos OS Security Configuration Guide: • J Series and SRX Series Documentation and Release Notes on page xli • Objectives on page xlii • Audience on page xlii • Supported Routing Platforms on page xlii • Document Conventions on page xlii • Documentation Feedback on page xliv • Requesting Technical Support on page xliv Juniper Networks supports a technical book program to publish books by Juniper Networks engineers and subject matter experts with book publishers around the world. These books go beyond the technical documentation to explore the nuances of network architecture, deployment, and administration using the Junos operating system (Junos OS) and Juniper Networks devices. In addition, the Juniper Networks Technical Library, published in conjunction with O'Reilly Media, explores improving network security, reliability, and availability using Junos OS configuration techniques. All the books are for sale at technical bookstores and book outlets around the world. The current list can be viewed at http://www.juniper.net/books .Junos OS for SRX Series Services Gateways integrates the world-class network security and routing capabilities of Juniper Networks. Junos OS includes a wide range of packet-based filtering, class-of-service (CoS) classifiers, and traffic-shaping features as well as a rich, extensive set of flow-based security features including policies, screens, network address translation (NAT), and other flow-based services. Traffic that enters and exits services gateway is processed according to features you configure, such as packet filters, security policies, and screens. For example, the software can determine: • Whether the packet is allowed into the device • Which firewall screens to apply to the packet • The route the packet takes to reach its destination • Which CoS to apply to the packet, if any • Whether to apply NAT to translate the packet’s IP address • Whether the packet requires an Application Layer Gateway (ALG

Desarrollo de un 'sniffer' para la generación de listas blancas para Snort

El objetivo de nuestro proyecto es el de contribuir con una nueva herramienta en el campo de la "Detección y Prevención" de ataques a la seguridad de Sistemas de Información en el entorno industrial. Para esto, el software sobre el que he estado trabajando, realizará un estudio estadístico de las tramas que transmiten información y señales de control entre dispositivos electrónicos que conforman segmentos de red en sistemas de entorno industrial. El "sniffer" que aquí presento, va algo mas allá con respecto a los analizadores de paquetes que ya conocemos (Ethereal, Wireshark...). Es capaz de extraer los campos de interés que caracterizan un conexión entre dichos dispositivos, almacenar estos datos en estructuras de almacenamiento dínámicas para datos adaptadas para este propósito, llegando a realizar una completa descripción del tráfico observado; para. Para posteriormente, con dicha información, realizar "listas blancas" (comportamiento permitido), las cuales serán utlizadas por el Detector de Intrusiones de software libre conocido como Snort. Además, nuestra herramienta, será capaz de interactuar con el sistema de ficheros de Snort. Utilizando las alternativas que los Sistemas Operativos Linux nos brindan a través de script. Somos de este modo capaces de automatizar el intercambio de archivos tanto de información como de configuración entre componentes software, facilitando en definitiva la labor de un admisnistrador de red

Demystifying Internet of Things Security

Break down the misconceptions of the Internet of Things by examining the different security building blocks available in Intel Architecture (IA) based IoT platforms. This open access book reviews the threat pyramid, secure boot, chain of trust, and the SW stack leading up to defense-in-depth. The IoT presents unique challenges in implementing security and Intel has both CPU and Isolated Security Engine capabilities to simplify it. This book explores the challenges to secure these devices to make them immune to different threats originating from within and outside the network. The requirements and robustness rules to protect the assets vary greatly and there is no single blanket solution approach to implement security. Demystifying Internet of Things Security provides clarity to industry professionals and provides and overview of different security solutions What You'll Learn Secure devices, immunizing them against different threats originating from inside and outside the network Gather an overview of the different security building blocks available in Intel Architecture (IA) based IoT platforms Understand the threat pyramid, secure boot, chain of trust, and the software stack leading up to defense-in-depth Who This Book Is For Strategists, developers, architects, and managers in the embedded and Internet of Things (IoT) space trying to understand and implement the security in the IoT devices/platforms

Trust and integrity in distributed systems

In the last decades, we have witnessed an exploding growth of the Internet. The massive adoption of distributed systems on the Internet allows users to offload their computing intensive work to remote servers, e.g. cloud. In this context, distributed systems are pervasively used in a number of difference scenarios, such as web-based services that receive and process data, cloud nodes where company data and processes are executed, and softwarised networks that process packets. In these systems, all the computing entities need to trust each other and co-operate in order to work properly. While the communication channels can be well protected by protocols like TLS or IPsec, the problem lies in the expected behaviour of the remote computing platforms, because they are not under the direct control of end users and do not offer any guarantee that they will behave as agreed. For example, the remote party may use non-legitimate services for its own convenience (e.g. illegally storing received data and routed packets), or the remote system may misbehave due to an attack (e.g. changing deployed services). This is especially important because most of these computing entities need to expose interfaces towards the Internet, which makes them easier to be attacked. Hence, software-based security solutions alone are insufficient to deal with the current scenario of distributed systems. They must be coupled with stronger means such as hardware-assisted protection. In order to allow the nodes in distributed system to trust each other, their integrity must be presented and assessed to predict their behaviour. The remote attestation technique of trusted computing was proposed to specifically deal with the integrity issue of remote entities, e.g. whether the platform is compromised with bootkit attacks or cracked kernel and services. This technique relies on a hardware chip called Trusted Platform Module (TPM), which is available in most business class laptops, desktops and servers. The TPM plays as the hardware root of trust, which provides a special set of capabilities that allows a physical platform to present its integrity state. With a TPM equipped in the motherboard, the remote attestation is the procedure that a physical node provides hardware-based proof of the software components loaded in this platform, which can be evaluated by other entities to conclude its integrity state. Thanks to the hardware TPM, the remote attestation procedure is resistant to software attacks. However, even though the availability of this chip is high, its actual usage is low. The major reason is that trusted computing has very little flexibility, since its goal is to provide strong integrity guarantees. For instance, remote attestation result is positive if and only if the software components loaded in the platform are expected and loaded in a specific order, which limits its applicability in real-world scenarios. For such reasons, this technique is especially hard to be applied on software services running in application layer, that are loaded in random order and constantly updated. Because of this, current remote attestation techniques provide incomplete solution. They only focus on the boot phase of physical platforms but not on the services, not to mention the services running in virtual instances. This work first proposes a new remote attestation framework with the capability of presenting and evaluating the integrity state not only of the boot phase of physical platforms but also of software services at load time, e.g. whether the software is legitimate or not. The framework allows users to know and understand the integrity state of the whole life cycle of the services they are interacting with, thus the users can make informed decision whether to send their data or trust the received results. Second, based on the remote attestation framework this thesis proposes a method to bind the identity of secure channel endpoint to a specific physical platform and its integrity state. Secure channels are extensively adopted in distributed systems to protect data transmitted from one platform to another. However, they do not convey any information about the integrity state of the platform or the service that generates and receives this data, which leaves ample space for various attacks. With the binding of the secure channel endpoint and the hardware TPM, users are protected from relay attacks (with hardware-based identity) and malicious or cracked platform and software (with remote attestation). Third, with the help of the remote attestation framework, this thesis introduces a new method to include the integrity state of software services running in virtual containers in the evidence generated by the hardware TPM. This solution is especially important for softwarised network environments. Softwarised network was proposed to provide dynamic and flexible network deployment which is an ever complex task nowadays. Its main idea is to switch hardware appliances to softwarised network functions running inside virtual instances, that are full-fledged computational systems and accessible from the Internet, thus their integrity is at stake. Unfortunately, currently remote attestation work is not able to provide hardware-based integrity evidence for software services running inside virtual instances, because the direct link between the internal of virtual instances and hardware root of trust is missing. With the solution proposed in this thesis, the integrity state of the softwarised network functions running in virtual containers can be presented and evaluated with hardware-based evidence, implying the integrity of the whole softwarised network. The proposed remote attestation framework, trusted channel and trusted softwarised network are implemented in separate working prototypes. Their performance was evaluated and proved to be excellent, allowing them to be applied in real-world scenarios. Moreover, the implementation also exposes various APIs to simplify future integration with different management platforms, such as OpenStack and OpenMANO

A Survey on Data Plane Programming with P4: Fundamentals, Advances, and Applied Research

With traditional networking, users can configure control plane protocols to match the specific network configuration, but without the ability to fundamentally change the underlying algorithms. With SDN, the users may provide their own control plane, that can control network devices through their data plane APIs. Programmable data planes allow users to define their own data plane algorithms for network devices including appropriate data plane APIs which may be leveraged by user-defined SDN control. Thus, programmable data planes and SDN offer great flexibility for network customization, be it for specialized, commercial appliances, e.g., in 5G or data center networks, or for rapid prototyping in industrial and academic research. Programming protocol-independent packet processors (P4) has emerged as the currently most widespread abstraction, programming language, and concept for data plane programming. It is developed and standardized by an open community and it is supported by various software and hardware platforms. In this paper, we survey the literature from 2015 to 2020 on data plane programming with P4. Our survey covers 497 references of which 367 are scientific publications. We organize our work into two parts. In the first part, we give an overview of data plane programming models, the programming language, architectures, compilers, targets, and data plane APIs. We also consider research efforts to advance P4 technology. In the second part, we analyze a large body of literature considering P4-based applied research. We categorize 241 research papers into different application domains, summarize their contributions, and extract prototypes, target platforms, and source code availability.Comment: Submitted to IEEE Communications Surveys and Tutorials (COMS) on 2021-01-2

Protecting Networked Systems from Malware Threats

Currently, networks and networked systems are essential media for us to communicate with other people, access resources, and share information. Reading (or sending) emails, navigating web sites, and uploading pictures to social medias are common behaviors using networks. Besides these, networks and networked systems are used to store or access sensitive or private information. In addition, major economic activities, such as buying food and selling used cars, can also be operated with networks. Likewise, we live with networks and networked systems. As network usages are increasing and popular, people face the problems of net- work attacks. Attackers on the networks can steal people’s private information, mislead people to pay money for fake products, and threaten people, who operate online commercial sites, by bothering their services. There are much more diverse types of network attacks that torture many people using networks, and the situation is still serious. The proposal in this dissertation starts from the following two research questions: (i) what kind of network attack is prevalent and how we can investigate it and (ii) how we can protect our networks and networked systems from these attacks. Therefore, this dissertation spans two main areas to provide answers for each question. First, we analyze the behaviors and characteristics of large-scale bot infected hosts, and it provides us new findings of network malware and new insights that are useful to detect (or defeat) recent network threats. To do this, we investigate the characteristics of victims infected by recent popular botnet - Conficker, MegaD, and Srizbi. In addition, we propose a method to detect these bots by correlating network and host features. Second, we suggest new frameworks to make our networks secure based on the new network technology of Software Defined Networking (SDN). Currently, SDN technology is considered as a future major network trend, and it can dynamically program networks as we want. Our suggested frameworks for SDN can be used to devise network security applications easily, and we also provide an approach to make SDN technology secure

Security First approach in development of Single-Page Application based on Angular

Recently a Single-Page Application (SPA) approach is getting attention even though this is based on JavaScript is not considered to be a safe programming language. In the SPA ecosystem developers often have to use many external dependencies. Detected vulnerabilities in these external dependencies are disclosed and updated in most cases by the community. Often, in-depth security analysis is not included during the development stage, due to project deadlines and other circumstances. It goes with number of complications. The most straightforward is to be vulnerable for cyber attacks which causes financial problems for companies. Currently law already includes penalties in case of data breaches. Moreover, detected vulnerable code delays projects due to necessary time to improve it. Sometimes it requires to change the whole architecture if the application was poorly designed or in case security was skipped completely in the early stage. It might lead even to putting changes in the architectural style once the application is already on the market. It does makes high pressure on software developers to fix it fast. The rush to deliver it as fast as possible can create new security risks, because in some scenarios it might take significant amount of time to change the design with security prioritization. Especially within the financial industry consequences of not including security during the design stage might be harmful. Companies in this industry are entrusted with high social trust and sensitive (personal) data. For such enterprises shortcomings in security might cause data, image and money loss. Cybercrime activities are intensifying and for some companies it might causes to be kicked out of business due to hacking. This important factor of software development is currently getting more attention. That is why providing security in an early stage of a project is important, as well should be considered as a prerequisite. Security should be integrally included in all parts of the development cycle: specification, design, implementation and testing. The desired result is a secure web application. Improving security might be done explicitly by using security analysis and enhance security accordingly to the results. However, implicit methods like clean code, programming best practices, proper architecture design also applies. Ideally, in a continuous security way. Programming best practices and countermeasures against web application security threats have been used to analyse and verify SPA security. In this research project, an Angular SPA has been developed with focus on security. It includes programming best practices, security analysis and number of different tests. The main goal was to develop a SPA based on the Angular framework with security first approach. An in-depth security analysis of the deployed application is then conducted with validation of these results