49 research outputs found
A comprehensive approach to MPSoC security: achieving network-on-chip security : a hierarchical, multi-agent approach
Multiprocessor Systems-on-Chip (MPSoCs) are pervading our lives, acquiring ever increasing relevance in a large number of applications, including even safety-critical ones. MPSoCs, are becoming increasingly complex and heterogeneous; the Networks on Chip (NoC paradigm has been introduced to support scalable on-chip communication, and (in some cases) even with reconfigurability support. The increased complexity as well as the networking approach in turn make security aspects more critical. In this work we propose and implement a hierarchical multi-agent approach providing solutions to secure NoC based MPSoCs at different levels of design. We develop a flexible, scalable and modular structure that integrates protection of different elements in the MPSoC (e.g. memory, processors) from different attack scenarios. Rather than focusing on protection strategies specifically devised for an individual attack or a particular core, this work aims at providing a comprehensive, system-level protection strategy: this constitutes its main methodological contribution. We prove feasibility of the concepts via prototype realization in FPGA technology
Lightweight edge authentication for software defined networks
OpenFlow is considered as the most known protocol for Software Defined Networking (SDN). The main drawback of OpenFlow is the lack of support of new header definitions, which is required by network operators to apply new packet encapsulations. While SDN’s logically centralized control plane could enhance network security by providing global visibility of the network state, it still has many side effects. The intelligent controllers that orchestrate the dumb switches are overloaded and become prone to failure. Delegating some level of control logic to the edge or, to be precise, the switches can offload the controllers from local state based decisions that do not require global network wide knowledge. Thus, this paper, to the best of our knowledge, is the first to propose the delegation of typical security functions from specialized middleboxes to the data plane. We leverage the opportunities offered by programming protocol-independent packet processors (P4) language to present two authentication techniques to assure that only legitimate nodes are able to access the network. The first technique is the port knocking and the second technique is the One-Time Password. Our experimental results indicate that our proposed techniques improve the network overall availability by offloading the controller as well as reducing the traffic in the network without noticeable negative impact on switches’ performance
Secure Network-on-Chip Against Black Hole and Tampering Attacks
The Network-on-Chip (NoC) has become the communication heart of Multiprocessors-System-on-Chip (MPSoC). Therefore, it has been subject to a plethora of security threats to degrade the system performance or steal sensitive information. Due to the globalization of the modern semiconductor industry, many different parties take part in the hardware design of the system. As a result, the NoC could be infected with a malicious circuit, known as a Hardware Trojan (HT), to leave a back door for security breach purposes. HTs are smartly designed to be too small to be uncovered by offline circuit-level testing, so the system requires an online monitoring to detect and prevent the HT in runtime.
This dissertation focuses on HTs inside the router of a NoC designed by a third party. It explores two HT-based threat models for the MPSoC, where the NoC experiences packet-loss and packet-tampering once the HT in the infected router is activated and is in the attacking state. Extensive experiments for each proposed architecture were conducted using a cycle-accurate simulator to demonstrate its effectiveness on the performance of the NoC-based system.
The first threat model is the Black Hole Router (BHR) attack, where it silently discards the packets that are passing through without further announcement. The effect of the BHR is presented and analyzed to show the potency of the attack on a NoC-based system. A countermeasure protocol is proposed to detect the BHR at runtime and counteract the deliberate packet-dropping attack with a 26.9% area overhead, an average 21.31% performance overhead and a 22% energy consumption overhead. The protocol is extended to provide an efficient and power-gated scheme to enhance the NoC throughput and reduce the energy consumption by using end-to-end (e2e) approach. The power-gated e2e technique locates the BHR and avoids it with a 1% performance overhead and a 2% energy consumption overhead.
The second threat model is a packet-integrity attack, where the HT tampers with the packet to apply a denial-of-service attack, steal sensitive information, gain unauthorized access, or misroute the packet to an unintended node. An authentic and secure NoC platform is proposed to detect and countermeasure the packet-tampering attack to maintain data-integrity and authenticity while keeping its secrecy with a 24.21% area overhead. The proposed NoC architecture is not only able to detect the attack, but also locates the infected router and isolates it from the network
Recommended from our members
Self-reconfigurable, intrusion-tolerant, web-service composition framework
The Internet has provided an opportunity for businesses to offer their services as Web Services (WSs). WSs are used to implement Service Ori-ented Architecture (SOA). They enable composition of independent services with complementary functionalities to produce value-added services, which results in less development effort, time consumption and cost, enabling com-panies and organizations to implement their core business only and out-source other service components over the Internet, either pre-selected or on-the-fly.
Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) based WSs are at risk of se-curity vulnerabilities related to their specific implementation technologies such as Extensible Markup Language (XML) as well as those of their under-lying platforms (e.g., operating systems and frameworks) and their applica-tions (e.g., vulnerability to SQL Injection attacks). Cyber-attacks on WSs may cause unavailability, loss of confidentiality and/or integrity as well as signifi-cant monetary penalties. Security issues become more challenging when Off-The-Shelf Web Services (OTSWSs) are used since they are beyond the con-trol of their clients.
The central question underlying this work is:
Can a self-reconfigurable Intrusion-Tolerant Web Ser-vice, implemented using N-version programming and diversity formed by composing Off-The-Shelf Web Services that are selected through penetration testing, Principal Component Analysis, and Cluster Analysis process-es mitigate XML-related security vulnerabilities?
While aiming to answer the above question, this dissertation presents a novel framework to increase dependability by constructing an Intrusion-Tolerant Web Service (ITWS) in which N-version programming and diversity, formed by composing SOAP-OTSWSs, is used. It describes how penetration testing can be used as a measure of security vulnerabilities of available SOAP-OTSWSs (that offer the required functionality) and the resultant ITWS, how Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and Cluster Analysis (CA) and be utilized to group the SOAP-OTSWSs based on their security vulnerabilities diversity and how a further penetration testing on each group of diverse SOAP-OTSWSs can be used to select the optimal set (most secure among the groups) for construction of ITWS.
This dissertation also demonstrates how the dynamic reconfiguration of ITWS, created in Business Process Engineering Language (BPEL), can be enabled using a combination of BPEL constructs and Java as BPEL exten-sion approach and using only Java as BPEL extension approach.
The novelty of the work presented in this dissertation is twofold. On the one hand, it is security informed and on the other hand, it demonstrates the use of Java (as BPEL 2.0 extension) to implement self-reconfigurable composite WS. It has the advantage of, at the same time, facilitating a de-pendable service to users and exploiting existing standard technologies. This work also assesses the effectiveness of the proposed solutions through vari-ous case studies and discusses the implications of the proposed framework
Adaptive security
Automated runtime security adaptation has great potential in providing timely and fine grained security control. In this thesis we study the practical utility of a runtime security-performance trade off for the pervasive Secure Socket Layer (SSL/TLS) protocol. To that end we address a number of research challenges. We develop an Adaptive Security methodology to extend non-adaptive legacy security systems with adaptive features. We also create a design of such an extended system to support the methodology. The design aids in identifying additional key components necessary for the creation of an adaptive security system. We furthermore apply our methodology to the Secure Socket Layer (SSL) protocol to create a design and implementation of a practical Adaptive SSL (ASSL) solution that supports runtime security adaptation in response to cross-cutting environmental concerns. The solution effectively adapts security at runtime, only reducing maximum server load by 15% or more depending on adaptation decision complexity. Next we address the security-performance trade off research challenge. Following our methodology we conduct an offline study of factors affecting server performance when security is adapted. These insights allow for the creation of policies that can trade off security and performance by taking into account the expected future state of the system under adaptation. In so doing we found that client SSL session duration, requested file size and current security algorithm play roles predicting future system state. Notably, performance deviation is smaller when sessions are longer and files are smaller and vice versa. A complete Adaptive Security solution which successfully demonstrates our methodology is implemented with trade-off policies and ASSL as key components. We show that the solution effectively utilises available processing resources to increase security whilst still respecting performance guarantees.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo
Rapid Response Command and Control (R2C2): a systems engineering analysis of scaleable communications for Regional Combatant Commanders
Includes supplementary materialDisaster relief operations, such as the 2005 Tsunami and Hurricane Katrina, and wartime operations, such as
Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom, have identified the need for a standardized command and control
system interoperable among Joint, Coalition, and Interagency entities. The Systems Engineering Analysis Cohort 9 (SEA-9)
Rapid Response Command and Control (R2C2) integrated project team completed a systems engineering (SE) process to
address the military’s command and control capability gap. During the process, the R2C2 team conducted mission analysis,
generated requirements, developed and modeled architectures, and analyzed and compared current operational systems versus
the team’s R2C2 system. The R2C2 system provided a reachback capability to the Regional Combatant Commander’s (RCC)
headquarters, a local communications network for situational assessments, and Internet access for civilian counterparts
participating in Humanitarian Assistance/Disaster Relief operations. Because the team designed the R2C2 system to be
modular, analysis concluded that the R2C2 system was the preferred method to provide the RCC with the required flexibility
and scalability to deliver a rapidly deployable command and control capability to perform the range of military operations
Enabling peer-to-peer remote experimentation in distributed online remote laboratories
Remote Access Laboratories (RALs) are online platforms that allow human user interaction with physical instruments over the Internet. Usually RALs follow a client-server paradigm. Dedicated providers create and maintain experiments and corresponding educational content. In contrast, this dissertation focuses on a Peer-to-Peer (P2P) service model for RALs where users are encouraged to host experiments at their location. This approach can be seen as an example of an Internet of Things (IoT) system. A set of smart devices work together providing a cyber-physical interface for users to run experiments remotely via the Internet.
The majority of traditional RAL learning activities focus on undergraduate education where hands-on experience such as building experiments, is not a major focus. In contrast this work is motivated by the need to improve Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education for school-aged children. Here physically constructing experiments forms a substantial part of the learning experience. In the proposed approach, experiments can be designed with relatively simple components such as LEGO Mindstorms or Arduinos. The user interface can be programed using SNAP!, a graphical programming tool.
While the motivation for the work is educational in nature, this thesis focuses on the technical details of experiment control in an opportunistic distributed environment. P2P RAL aims to enable any two random participants in the system - one in the role of maker creating and hosting an experiment and one in the role of learner using the experiment - to establish a communication session during which the learner runs the remote experiment through the Internet without requiring a centralized experiment or service provider. The makers need to have support to create the experiment according to a common web based programing interface. Thus, the P2P approach of RALs requires an architecture that provides a set of heterogeneous tools which can be used by makers to create a wide variety of experiments.
The core contribution of this dissertation is an automaton-based model (twin finite state automata) of the controller units and the controller interface of an experiment. This enables the creation of experiments based on a common platform, both in terms of software and hardware. This architecture enables further development of algorithms for evaluating and supporting the performance of users which is demonstrated through a number of algorithms. It can also ensure the safety of instruments with intelligent tools. The proposed network architecture for P2P RALs is designed to minimise latency to improve user satisfaction and learning experience. As experiment availability is limited for this approach of RALs, novel scheduling strategies are proposed.
Each of these contributions has been validated through either simulations, e.g. in case of network architecture and scheduling, or test-bed implementations, in case of the intelligent tools. Three example experiments are discussed along with users' feedback on their experience of creating an experiment and using others’ experimental setup. The focus of the thesis is mainly on the design and hosting of experiments and ensuring user accessibility to them. The main contributions of this thesis are in regards to machine learning and data mining techniques applied to IoT systems in order to realize the P2P RALs system.
This research has shown that a P2P architecture of RALs can provide a wide variety of experimental setups in a modular environment with high scalability. It can potentially enhance the user-learning experience while aiding the makers of experiments. It presents new aspects of learning analytics mechanisms to monitor and support users while running experiments, thus lending itself to further research. The proposed mathematical models are also applicable to other Internet of Things applications