A Model-Derivation Framework for Software Analysis

Model-based verification allows to express behavioral correctness conditions like the validity of execution states, boundaries of variables or timing at a high level of abstraction and affirm that they are satisfied by a software system. However, this requires expressive models which are difficult and cumbersome to create and maintain by hand. This paper presents a framework that automatically derives behavioral models from real-sized Java programs. Our framework builds on the EMF/ECore technology and provides a tool that creates an initial model from Java bytecode, as well as a series of transformations that simplify the model and eventually output a timed-automata model that can be processed by a model checker such as UPPAAL. The framework has the following properties: (1) consistency of models with software, (2) extensibility of the model derivation process, (3) scalability and (4) expressiveness of models. We report several case studies to validate how our framework satisfies these properties.Comment: In Proceedings MARS 2017, arXiv:1703.0581

A Model-Derivation Framework for Software Analysis

Model-based verification allows to express behavioral correctness conditions like the validity of execution states, boundaries of variables or timing at a high level of abstraction and affirm that they are satisfied by a software system. However, this requires expressive models which are difficult and cumbersome to create and maintain by hand. This paper presents a framework that automatically derives behavioral models from real-sized Java programs. Our framework builds on the EMF/ECore technology and provides a tool that creates an initial model from Java bytecode, as well as a series of transformations that simplify the model and eventually output a timed-automata model that can be processed by a model checker such as UPPAAL. The framework has the following properties: (1) consistency of models with software, (2) extensibility of the model derivation process, (3) scalability and (4) expressiveness of models. We report several case studies to validate how our framework satisfies these properties.Comment: In Proceedings MARS 2017, arXiv:1703.0581

Timed Analysis of Security Protocols

We propose a method for engineering security protocols that are aware of timing aspects. We study a simplified version of the well-known Needham Schroeder protocol and the complete Yahalom protocol, where timing information allows the study of different attack scenarios. We model check the protocols using UPPAAL. Further, a taxonomy is obtained by studying and categorising protocols from the well known Clark Jacob library and the Security Protocol Open Repository (SPORE) library. Finally, we present some new challenges and threats that arise when considering time in the analysis, by providing a novel protocol that uses time challenges and exposing a timing attack over an implementation of an existing security protocol

A Survey on Continuous Time Computations

We provide an overview of theories of continuous time computation. These theories allow us to understand both the hardness of questions related to continuous time dynamical systems and the computational power of continuous time analog models. We survey the existing models, summarizing results, and point to relevant references in the literature

Software integration testing based on communication coverage criteria and partial model generation

This paper considers the problem of integration testing the components of a timed distributed software system. We assume that communication between the components is specified using timed interface automata and use computational tree logic (CTL) to define communication-based coverage criteria that refer to send- and receive-statements and communication paths. The proposed method enables testers to focus during component integration on such parts of the specification, e.g. behaviour specifications or Markovian usage models, that are involved in the communication between components to be integrated. A more specific application area of this approach is the integration of test-models, e.g. a transmission gear can be tested based on separated models for the driver behaviour, the engine condition, and the mechanical and hydraulical transmission states. Given such a state-based specification of a distributed system and a concrete coverage goal, a model checker is used in order to determine the coverage or generate test sequences that achieve the goal. Given the generated test sequences we derive a partial test-model of the components from which the test sequences are derived. The partial model can be used to drive further testing and can also be used as the basis for producing additional partial models in incremental integration testing. While the process of deriving the test sequences could suffer from a combinatorial explosion, the effort required to generate the partial model is polynomial in the number of test sequences and their length. Thus, where it is not feasible to produce test sequences that achieve a given type of coverage it is still possible to produce a partial model on the basis of test sequences generated to achieve some other criterion. As a result, the process of generating a partial model has the potential to scale to large industrial software systems. While a particular model checker, UPPAAL, was used, it should be relatively straightforward to adapt the approach for use with other CTL based model checkers. A potential additional benefit of the approach is that it provides a visual description of the state-based testing of distributed systems, which may be beneficial in other contexts such as education and comprehension

Formal and Informal Methods for Multi-Core Design Space Exploration

We propose a tool-supported methodology for design-space exploration for embedded systems. It provides means to define high-level models of applications and multi-processor architectures and evaluate the performance of different deployment (mapping, scheduling) strategies while taking uncertainty into account. We argue that this extension of the scope of formal verification is important for the viability of the domain.Comment: In Proceedings QAPL 2014, arXiv:1406.156

Behavioural equivalences for timed systems

Timed transition systems are behavioural models that include an explicit treatment of time flow and are used to formalise the semantics of several foundational process calculi and automata. Despite their relevance, a general mathematical characterisation of timed transition systems and their behavioural theory is still missing. We introduce the first uniform framework for timed behavioural models that encompasses known behavioural equivalences such as timed bisimulations, timed language equivalences as well as their weak and time-abstract counterparts. All these notions of equivalences are naturally organised by their discriminating power in a spectrum. We prove that this result does not depend on the type of the systems under scrutiny: it holds for any generalisation of timed transition system. We instantiate our framework to timed transition systems and their quantitative extensions such as timed probabilistic systems

Time Dependent Policy-Based Access Control

Access control policies are essential to determine who is allowed to access data in a system without compromising the data\u27s security. However, applications inside a distributed environment may require those policies to be dependent on the actual content of the data, the flow of information, while also on other attributes of the environment such as the time. In this paper, we use systems of Timed Automata to model distributed systems and we present a logic in which one can express time-dependent policies for access control. We show how a fragment of our logic can be reduced to a logic that current model checkers for Timed Automata such as UPPAAL can handle and we present a translator that performs this reduction. We then use our translator and UPPAAL to enforce time-dependent policy-based access control on an example application from the aerospace industry

Analysis of Non-Linear Probabilistic Hybrid Systems

This paper shows how to compute, for probabilistic hybrid systems, the clock approximation and linear phase-portrait approximation that have been proposed for non probabilistic processes by Henzinger et al. The techniques permit to define a rectangular probabilistic process from a non rectangular one, hence allowing the model-checking of any class of systems. Clock approximation, which applies under some restrictions, aims at replacing a non rectangular variable by a clock variable. Linear phase-approximation applies without restriction and yields an approximation that simulates the original process. The conditions that we need for probabilistic processes are the same as those for the classic case.Comment: In Proceedings QAPL 2011, arXiv:1107.074