Automatic Kerberos Key Rotation

Práce je zaměřena na autentizační systém Kerberos a jeho správu, převážne v oblasti Keytab souborů. Práce popisuje základní součásti celého systému, které jsou v těchto operacích zapojeny, a jejich hlavní vlastnosti. Částečně je také popsán administrační systém FreeIPA, jenž pro autentizaci uživatelů Kerberos využívá. Hlavním cílem bylo vytvořit aplikaci schopnou automaticky a bez uživatelova přičinění rotovat klíče Kerbera a zvýšit tak úroveň zabezpečení celého systému pro případy odposlechů komunikace.This thesis is focused on the Kerberos authentication system and itsmanagement, primarily in the area of the Keytab files. The thesis describes the basic components of the whole system which are involved in these operations and their main properties. The FreeIPA administration system is partly described as well. It uses the Kerberos for the users' authentication. The main objective of this work was to develop an application capable of ,automatically and without user's effort, rotation of the Kerberos keys and thus enhance the security level of the whole system in cases of the communication eavesdropping.

Security in a Distributed Processing Environment

Distribution plays a key role in telecommunication and computing systems today. It has become a necessity as a result of deregulation and anti-trust legislation, which has forced businesses to move from centralised, monolithic systems to distributed systems with the separation of applications and provisioning technologies, such as the service and transportation layers in the Internet. The need for reliability and recovery requires systems to use replication and secondary backup systems such as those used in ecommerce. There are consequences to distribution. It results in systems being implemented in heterogeneous environment; it requires systems to be scalable; it results in some loss of control and so this contributes to the increased security issues that result from distribution. Each of these issues has to be dealt with. A distributed processing environment (DPE) is middleware that allows heterogeneous environments to operate in a homogeneous manner. Scalability can be addressed by using object-oriented technology to distribute functionality. Security is more difficult to address because it requires the creation of a distributed trusted environment. The problem with security in a DPE currently is that it is treated as an adjunct service, i.e. and after-thought that is the last thing added to the system. As a result, it is not pervasive and therefore is unable to fully support the other DPE services. DPE security needs to provide the five basic security services, authentication, access control, integrity, confidentiality and non-repudiation, in a distributed environment, while ensuring simple and usable administration. The research, detailed in this thesis, starts by highlighting the inadequacies of the existing DPE and its services. It argues that a new management structure was introduced that provides greater flexibility and configurability, while promoting mechanism and service independence. A new secure interoperability framework was introduced which provides the ability to negotiate common mechanism and service level configurations. New facilities were added to the non-repudiation and audit services. The research has shown that all services should be security-aware, and therefore would able to interact with the Enhanced Security Service in order to provide a more secure environment within a DPE. As a proof of concept, the Trader service was selected. Its security limitations were examined, new security behaviour policies proposed and it was then implemented as a Security-aware Trader, which could counteract the existing security limitations.IONA TECHNOLOGIES PLC & ORANG

Federated identity architecture of the european eID system

Federated identity management is a method that facilitates management of identity processes and policies among the collaborating entities without a centralized control. Nowadays, there are many federated identity solutions, however, most of them covers different aspects of the identification problem, solving in some cases specific problems. Thus, none of these initiatives has consolidated as a unique solution and surely it will remain like that in a near future. To assist users choosing a possible solution, we analyze different federated identify approaches, showing main features, and making a comparative study among them. The former problem is even worst when multiple organizations or countries already have legacy eID systems, as it is the case of Europe. In this paper, we also present the European eID solution, a purely federated identity system that aims to serve almost 500 million people and that could be extended in midterm also to eID companies. The system is now being deployed at the EU level and we present the basic architecture and evaluate its performance and scalability, showing that the solution is feasible from the point of view of performance while keeping security constrains in mind. The results show a good performance of the solution in local, organizational, and remote environments

Enhanced security architecture for support of credential repository in grid computing.

Grid Computing involves heterogeneous computers and resources, multiple administrative domains and the mechanisms and techniques for establishing and maintaining effective and secure communications between devices and systems. Both authentication and authorization are required. Current authorization models in each domain vary from one system to another, which makes it difficult for users to obtain authorization across multiple domains at one time. We propose an enhanced security architecture to provide support for decentralized authorization based on attribute certificates which may be accessed via the Internet. This allows the administration of privileges to be widely distributed over the Internet in support of autonomy for resource owners and providers. In addition, it provides a uniform approach for authorization which may be used by resource providers from various domains. We combine authentication with the authorization mechanism by using both MyProxy online credential repository and LDAP directory server. In our architecture, we use MyProxy server to store identity certificates for authentication, and utilize an LDAP server-based architecture to store attribute certificates for authorization. Using a standard web browser, a user may connect to a grid portal and allow the portal to retrieve those certificates in order to access grid resources on behalf of the user. Thus, our approach can make use of the online credential repository to integrate authentication, delegation and attribute based access control together to provide enhanced, flexible security for grid system. Paper copy at Leddy Library: Theses & Major Papers - Basement, West Bldg. / Call Number: Thesis2004 .C54. Source: Masters Abstracts International, Volume: 43-01, page: 0231. Adviser: R. D. Kent. Thesis (M.Sc.)--University of Windsor (Canada), 2004

A Dynamic Validation Infrastructure for Interoperable Grid Services

Los encargados de recursos Grid pueden autorizar el acceso a sus elementos de cómputo por medio de procedimientos bien establecidos para los clientes, regularmente a través del uso de credenciales criptográficas que en su mayoría tienen un tiempo de vida definido.A pesar que la adopción de Autoridades de Certificación -AC- ha parcialmente resuelto el problema de identificación y autenticación entre entidades y, la tecnología PKI (Infraestructuras de Clave Pública) es bastante madura, no es posible hacer los mismos supuestos cuando existen dominios que no confían entre si. En los últimos años han proliferado las Organizaciones Virtuales -VOs- dentro del Grid, cada una instalando su propia Autoridad de Certificación y dando lugar a un gran número de diferentes dominios de seguridad, que efectivamente no confían entre si. Esto da lugar a un complejo escenario de interoperabilidad en Grid, que requiere mecanismos capaces de determinar si una credencial cliente puede ser confiada en un momento dado. Este proceso (llamado "validacion") ha sido tradicionalmente tratado via Listas de Revocación de Certificados (CRLs). Sin embargo, esta solución es ineficiente tanto para la ACs como para las aplicaciones Grid. En consecuencia son requeridos mecanismos mas eficientes que permitan conocer el estado de un certificado en tiempo real. Entre estas soluciones, el Online Certificate Status Protocol (OCSP) sobresale para los Grids. A pesar de su importancia para la seguridad, OCSP conlleva considerables retos para el Grid y de momento es incapaz para garantizar un grado seguro de interoperabilidad entre las ACs que participan en dicho ambiente.De momento la comunidad Grid ha resuelto el problema de interoperabilidad mediante el uso de "Policy Management Authorities" (PMAs), las cuales representan "Federaciones de Grid-PKIs" cuyas ACs miembros cumplen con niveles mínimos de seguridad. Estos requisitos mínimos forman el llamado "Perfil de Autenticación de la PMA". Actualmente el cumplimiento con el perfil de una cierta PMA se lleva a cabo a través de un proceso bien definido, pero manual, que se realiza una sola ocasión cuando una AC desea ser parte de dicha PMA. Esto se denomina "Proceso de Acreditación".Cualquier cliente invocando una operación de un servicio Grid, activa un proceso de autenticación que valida su certificado digital de acuerdo a un proceso llamado "Path Validation".Cuando las ACs participantes interoperan gracias a acuerdos explícitos de confianza, solamente se require un "Path Validation Básico": verificación criptográfica y chequeo del estado del certificado. Software Grid como el Globus Toolkit, provee mecanismos estáticos para dicho proceso. Esto sin embargo resulta inapropiado para VOs actuales.Asi pues, a pesar de la importancia que un proceso automático y "Extendido" de "Path Validation" tendría para construir relaciones de confianza dinámicamente en Grid-PKIs, a la fecha no existe ningún mecanismo para hacerlo.Esta tesis presenta una arquitectura novedosa para llevar a cabo el proceso "Extendido de Path Validation" en ambientes Grid para ACs que pertenecen a la misma PMA, gracias al uso de una Infraestructura de Validación basada en el Grid-OCSP y, una metodología de evaluación de políticas que compara las Políticas de Certificación de las ACs involucradas para asegurarse que cumplen con un Perfil de Autenticación y, que por lo tanto pueden interoperar entre ellas. La metodología de evaluación de políticas está basada en una propuesta de investigación de la "Universidad de Nápoles, Federico II" y la "Segunda Universidad de Nápoles". Un prototipo de la Infraestructura de Validación ha sido desarrollado durante nuestra investigación, y es ampliamente explicado en esta tesis.Grid Resource owners can authorize access to their computing elements by means of well established Authentication and Authorization processes for End-entities, through the use of cryptographic credentials that in most of the cases have a defined lifetime. Nevertheless, despite the fact that the adoption of Certification Authorities -CAs- has partially solved the problem of identification and authentication between the involved parties, and that Public Key Infrastructure -PKI- technologies are mature enough, we cannot make the same assumptions when untrusted domains are involved. In the last years a lot of Grid Virtual Organizations -VOs- have been proliferating, each one usually installing its own Certificate Authority and thus giving birth to a large set of different and possibly untrusted security domains. This brings a quite complex Grid interoperability scenario requiring mechanisms able to determine whether a particular end-entity's credential can be trusted at a given moment. This process is commonly named validation and traditionally it is performed via Certificate Revocation Lists (CRL). However this solution tends to be cumbersome for both, the CA and the application. In consequence, more efficient mechanisms to allow for the provision of real time certificate status information are required. Among these solutions, the Online Certificate Status Protocol (OCSP) stands out in the Grid community. Despite its importance for security, OCSP not only faces considerable challenges in the computational Grid but also, in its current form, this protocol is unable to guarantee a secure degree of interoperability among all the involved Grid-Certification Authorities. At the state of the art, the Grid community is circumventing the interoperability problem with the "Policy Management Authorities (PMAs)", which represent "Federations of Grid PKIs" whose CA members accomplish minimum levels of security. These minimum requirements comprise the PMA's Authentication Profile. In the case of the existing Grid PMAs, compliance with their respective authentication profile is given through a well-defined, but manual process involving a careful analysis of the applicant PKI's Certification Policy -CP-, performed just once, when a new CA wishes to be part of an existing PMA. This is known as the PMA's accreditation process.Any end-entity invoking a Grid Service's operation from the server, activates an authentication process that validates the end-entity's digital certificate according to the traditional path validation procedure.When involved CAs interoperate thanks to explicit trust agreements, only basic path validation is required: cryptographic verifications and status' checks over the involved certificates. State of the art Grid software like the Globus Toolkit, provides static mechanisms for the basic path validation. This is a cumbersome process in nowadays Virtual Organizations.Therefore, despite the importance that an automated and extended path validation process has got in order to build dynamic trust relationships among Grid PKI's, to date there is no mechanism to automatically obtain this information.This thesis presents a novel architecture for enabling extended path validation in Grid environments for CAs that are part of the same PMA, thanks to the use of a Validation Infrastructure based on a Grid-enabled Online Certificate Status Protocol and, a policy evaluation methodology that compares the involved CAs' Certificate Policies to assert that they fulfil with a particular Authentication Profile and that they can therefore interoperate among them. The policy evaluation technique is based on a formal methodology originally proposed by researchers of the "Università di Napoli, Federico II" and the "Seconda Università di Napoli". A working prototype of the proposed Validation Infrastructure was also developed during our research, and is widely explained along this thesis

GRIDSITE

GridSite provides grid credential, proxy certificate and delegation support for web-based application

A Holistic Analysis of Internet of Things (IoT) Security : Principles, Practices, and New Perspectives

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

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

Learning by doing on the EGEE GRID and first performance analysis of CODESA-3D multirun submission

The project TEMA (Training on Environmental Modelling and Applications) is a CRS4 training initiative in the field of computational hydrology and grid computing (Jan-Sept, 2006). The personnel involved were Fabrizio Murgia (trainee) and Giuditta Lecca (tutor). The objectives of the project were: " To aquire specialized skills about grid computing with special emphasis on computational sub-surface hydrology; " To develop and test software procedures to run Monte Carlo simulations on the EGEE production grid; " To produce a technical report and some seminars about grid computing. The aquired competences and skills will be used in the ongoing projects GRIDA3, CyberSAR and DEGREE