Evolution of security engineering artifacts: a state of the art survey

Security is an important quality aspect of modern open software systems. However, it is challenging to keep such systems secure because of evolution. Security evolution can only be managed adequately if it is considered for all artifacts throughout the software development lifecycle. This article provides state of the art on the evolution of security engineering artifacts. The article covers the state of the art on evolution of security requirements, security architectures, secure code, security tests, security models, and security risks as well as security monitoring. For each of these artifacts the authors give an overview of evolution and security aspects and discuss the state of the art on its security evolution in detail. Based on this comprehensive survey, they summarize key issues and discuss directions of future research

Proceedings of the 2nd International Workshop on Security in Mobile Multiagent Systems

This report contains the Proceedings of the Second Workshop on Security on Security of Mobile Multiagent Systems (SEMAS2002). The Workshop was held in Montreal, Canada as a satellite event to the 5th International Conference on Autonomous Agents in 2001. The far reaching influence of the Internet has resulted in an increased interest in agent technologies, which are poised to play a key role in the implementation of successful Internet and WWW-based applications in the future. While there is still considerable hype concerning agent technologies, there is also an increasing awareness of the problems involved. In particular, that these applications will not be successful unless security issues can be adequately handled. Although there is a large body of work on cryptographic techniques that provide basic building-blocks to solve specific security problems, relatively little work has been done in investigating security in the multiagent system context. Related problems are secure communication between agents, implementation of trust models/authentication procedures or even reflections of agents on security mechanisms. The introduction of mobile software agents significantly increases the risks involved in Internet and WWW-based applications. For example, if we allow agents to enter our hosts or private networks, we must offer the agents a platform so that they can execute correctly but at the same time ensure that they will not have deleterious effects on our hosts or any other agents / processes in our network. If we send out mobile agents, we should also be able to provide guarantees about specific aspects of their behaviour, i.e., we are not only interested in whether the agents carry out-out their intended task correctly. They must defend themselves against attacks initiated by other agents, and survive in potentially malicious environments. Agent technologies can also be used to support network security. For example in the context of intrusion detection, intelligent guardian agents may be used to analyse the behaviour of agents on a firewall or intelligent monitoring agents can be used to analyse the behaviour of agents migrating through a network. Part of the inspiration for such multi-agent systems comes from primitive animal behaviour, such as that of guardian ants protecting their hill or from biological immune systems

Behavioral modeling for anomaly detection in industrial control systems

In 1990s, industry demanded the interconnection of corporate and production networks. Thus, Industrial Control Systems (ICSs) evolved from 1970s proprietary and close hardware and software to nowadays Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) devices. Although this transformation carries several advantages, such as simplicity and cost-efficiency, the use of COTS hardware and software implies multiple Information Technology vulnerabilities. Specially tailored worms like Stuxnet, Duqu, Night Dragon or Flame showed their potential to damage and get information about ICSs. Anomaly Detection Systems (ADSs), are considered suitable security mechanisms for ICSs due to the repetitiveness and static architecture of industrial processes. ADSs base their operation in behavioral models that require attack-free training data or an extensive description of the process for their creation. This thesis work proposes a new approach to analyze binary industrial protocols payloads and automatically generate behavioral models synthesized in rules. In the same way, through this work we develop a method to generate realistic network traffic in laboratory conditions without the need for a real ICS installation. This contribution establishes the basis of future ADS as well as it could support experimentation through the recreation of realistic traffic in simulated environments. Furthermore, a new approach to correct delay and jitter issues is proposed. This proposal improves the quality of time-based ADSs by reducing the false positive rate. We experimentally validate the proposed approaches with several statistical methods, ADSs quality measures and comparing the results with traffic taken from a real installation. We show that a payload-based ADS is possible without needing to understand the payload data, that the generation of realistic network traffic in laboratory conditions is feasible and that delay and jitter correction improves the quality of behavioral models. As a conclusion, the presented approaches provide both, an ADS able to work with private industrial protocols, together with a method to create behavioral models for open ICS protocols which does not requite training data.90. hamarkadan industriak sare korporatibo eta industrialen arteko konexioa eskatu zuen. Horrela, Kontrol Sistema Industrialak (KSI) 70. hamarkadako hardware eta software jabedun eta itxitik gaur eguneko gailu estandarretara egin zuten salto. Eraldaketa honek hainbat onura ekarri baditu ere, era berean gailu estandarren erabilerak hainbat Informazio Teknologietako (IT) zaurkortasun ekarri ditu. Espezialki diseinatutako zizareek, Stuxnet, Duque, Night Dragon eta Flame esaterako, ondorio latzak gauzatu eta informazioa lapurtzean beraien potentzia erakutsi dute. Anomalia Detekzio Sistemak (ADS) KSI-etako segurtasun mekanismo egoki bezala kontsideraturik daude, azken hauen errepikakortasun eta arkitektura estatikoa dela eta. ADS-ak erasorik gabeko datu garbietan ikasitako edo prozesuen deskripzio sakona behar duten jarrera modeloetan oinarritzen dira. Tesi honek protokolo industrial binarioak aztertu eta automatikoki jarrera modeloak sortu eta erregeletan sintetizatzen dituen ikuspegia proposatzen du. Era berean lan honen bidez laborategi kondizioetan sare trafiko errealista sortzeko metodo bat aurkezten da, KSI-rik behar ez duena. Ekarpen honek etorkizuneko ADS baten oinarriak finkatzen ditu, baita esperimentazioa bultzatu ere simulazio inguruneetan sare trafiko errealista sortuz. Gainera, atzerapen eta sortasun arazoak hobetzen dituen ekarpen berri bat egiten da. Ekarpen honek denboran oinarritutako ADS-en kalitatea hobetzen du, positibo faltsuen ratioa jaitsiz. Esperimentazio bidez ekarpen ezberdinak balioztatu dira, hainbat metodo estatistiko, ADS-en kalitate neurri eta trafiko erreal eta simulatuak alderatuz. Datu erabilgarriak ulertzeko beharrik gabeko ADS-ak posible direla demostratu dugu, trafiko errealista laborategi kondizioetan sortzea posible dela eta atzerapen eta sortasunaren zuzenketak jarrera modeloen kalitatea hobetzen dutela. Ondorio bezala, protokolo industrial pribatuekin lan egiteko ADS bat eta jarrera modeloa sortzeko entrenamendu daturik behar ez duen eta KSI-en protokolo irekiekin lan egiteko gai den metodoa aurkeztu dira.En los años 90, la industria proclamó la interconexión de las redes corporativas y los de producción. Así, los Sistemas de Control Industrial (SCI) evolucionaron desde el hardware y software propietario de los 70 hasta los dispositivos comunes de hoy en día. Incluso si esta adopción implicó diversas ventajas, como el uso de hardware y software comunes, conlleva múltiples vulnerabilidades. Gusanos especialmente desarrollados como Stuxnet, Duqu, Night Dragon y Flame mostraron su potencial para causar daños y obtener información. Los Sistemas de Detección de Anomalías (SDA) están considerados como mecanismos de seguridad apropiados para los SCI debido a la repetitividad y la arquitectura estática de los procesos industriales. Los SDA basan su operación en modelos de comportamiento que requieren datos libres de ataque o extensas descripciones de proceso para su creación. Esta tesis propone un nuevo enfoque para el análisis de los datos de la carga útil del tráfico de protocolos industriales binarios y la generación automática de modelos de comportamiento sintetizados en reglas. Así mismo, mediante este trabajo se ha desarrollado un método para generar tráfico de red realista en condiciones de laboratorio sin la necesidad de instalaciones SCI reales. Esta contribución establece las bases de un futuro SDA así como el respaldo a la experimentación mediante la recreación de tráfico realista en entornos simulados. Además, se ha propuesto un nuevo enfoque para la corrección de retraso y latencia. Esta propuesta mejora la calidad del SDA basados en tiempo reduciendo el ratio de falsos positivos. Mediante la experimentación se han validado los enfoques propuestos utilizando algunos métodos estadísticos, medidas de calidad de SDA y comparando los resultados con tráfico obtenido a partir de instalaciones reales. Se ha demostrado que son posibles los SDA basados en carga útil sin la necesidad de entender el contenido de la carga, que la generación de tráfico realista en condiciones de laboratorio es posible y que la corrección del retraso y la latencia mejoran la calidad de los modelos de comportamiento. Como conclusión, las propuestas presentadas proporcionan un SDA capaz de trabajar con protocolos privados de control industrial a la vez que un método para la creación de modelos de comportamiento para SCI sin la necesidad de datos de entrenamiento

AI Solutions for MDS: Artificial Intelligence Techniques for Misuse Detection and Localisation in Telecommunication Environments

This report considers the application of Articial Intelligence (AI) techniques to the problem of misuse detection and misuse localisation within telecommunications environments. A broad survey of techniques is provided, that covers inter alia rule based systems, model-based systems, case based reasoning, pattern matching, clustering and feature extraction, articial neural networks, genetic algorithms, arti cial immune systems, agent based systems, data mining and a variety of hybrid approaches. The report then considers the central issue of event correlation, that is at the heart of many misuse detection and localisation systems. The notion of being able to infer misuse by the correlation of individual temporally distributed events within a multiple data stream environment is explored, and a range of techniques, covering model based approaches, `programmed' AI and machine learning paradigms. It is found that, in general, correlation is best achieved via rule based approaches, but that these suffer from a number of drawbacks, such as the difculty of developing and maintaining an appropriate knowledge base, and the lack of ability to generalise from known misuses to new unseen misuses. Two distinct approaches are evident. One attempts to encode knowledge of known misuses, typically within rules, and use this to screen events. This approach cannot generally detect misuses for which it has not been programmed, i.e. it is prone to issuing false negatives. The other attempts to `learn' the features of event patterns that constitute normal behaviour, and, by observing patterns that do not match expected behaviour, detect when a misuse has occurred. This approach is prone to issuing false positives, i.e. inferring misuse from innocent patterns of behaviour that the system was not trained to recognise. Contemporary approaches are seen to favour hybridisation, often combining detection or localisation mechanisms for both abnormal and normal behaviour, the former to capture known cases of misuse, the latter to capture unknown cases. In some systems, these mechanisms even work together to update each other to increase detection rates and lower false positive rates. It is concluded that hybridisation offers the most promising future direction, but that a rule or state based component is likely to remain, being the most natural approach to the correlation of complex events. The challenge, then, is to mitigate the weaknesses of canonical programmed systems such that learning, generalisation and adaptation are more readily facilitated

Proceedings of the 3rd International Workshop on Formal Aspects in Security and Trust (FAST2005)

The present report contains the pre-proceedings of the third international Workshop on Formal Aspects in Security and Trust (FAST2005), held in Newcastle upon Tyne, 18-19 July 2005. FAST is an event affliated with the Formal Methods 2005 Congress (FM05). The third international Workshop on Formal Aspects in Security and Trust (FAST2005) aims at continuing the successful effort of the previous two FAST workshop editions for fostering the cooperation among researchers in the areas of security and trust. The new challenges offered by the so-called ambient intelligence space, as a future paradigm in the information society, demand for a coherent and rigorous framework of concepts, tools and methodologies to provide user\u27s trust&confidence on the underlying communication/interaction infrastructure. It is necessary to address issues relating to both guaranteeing security of the infrastructure and the perception of the infrastructure being secure. In addition, user confidence on what is happening must be enhanced by developing trust models effective but also easily comprehensible and manageable by users