Policy Viewer: a tool for security policy visualization using graphs

Orientador: Paulo Licio de GeusDissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de ComputaçãoResumo: A Internet trouxe grandes benefícios às organizações e usuários de computadores, porém causou também uma maior exposição dos sistemas computacionais interligados em rede. Inúmeros têm sido os esforços para conter o crescente aumento dos ataques que ocorrem no mundo todo, dentre os quais inclui-se o desenvolvimento de sistemas operacionais mais seguros. Entretanto, a adoção desses sistemas ainda é incipiente, devido a várias dificul-dades envolvidas no processo, dentre as quais destaca-se a complexidade de configuração e gerenciamento de políticas de segurança. Nesta dissertação, são apresentados os aspectos estudados durante o desenvolvimento do mestrado, que permitiram a identificação dos problemas atuais associados a segu-rança de sistemas operacionais e políticas de segurança. Isso resultou no projeto e imple-mentação do Policy Viewer, uma ferramenta de visualização de políticas de segurança. Sua finalidade é auxiliar o administrador de políticas na compreensão, visualização e verificação das políticas de segurança especificadas para o sistema operacional. Utilizando as características apresentadas no projeto, foi desenvolvida uma imple-mentação parcial da ferramenta contendo um subconjunto das funcionalidades previstas, sobre o qual foram elaborados exemplos para demonstrar sua utilidade no auxilio da configuração de políticas e na identificação de problemas da política especificadaAbstract: The Internet brought great benefits to organizations and computer users, but has also caused a larger exposure of the computing systems connected to the network. Countless efforts are being made to contain the increasingly higher leveI of attacks that happen ali over the world, among which stands the development of safer operating systems. Un-fortunately, the adoption of these systems is still incipient, because of several obstacles involved in the processo One of them is the complexity of configuring and managing security policies.This dissertation shows aspects of operating system security and security policies stu-died during the Masters program, leading to the identification of current problems asso-ciated with them. This resulted in the project and implementation of Policy Viewer, a tool for the visualization of security policies. Its purpose is to aid the policy administrator in the comprehension, visualization and validation of operating systems security policies. The tool has been partialiy implemented with a subset of the intended functions, using the features presented in the project. Also, examples are shown to demonstrate its utility toward aiding in the process of policy configuration and in the identification of possible problems of such policiesMestradoMestre em Ciência da Computaçã

An interoperability framework for security policy languages

A thesis submitted to the University of Bedfordshire in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of PhilosophySecurity policies are widely used across the IT industry in order to secure environments. Firewalls, routers, enterprise application or even operating systems like Windows and Unix are all using security policies to some extent in order to secure certain components. In order to automate enforcement of security policies, security policy languages have been introduced. Security policy languages that are classified as computer software, like many other programming languages have been revolutionised during the last decade. A number of security policy languages have been introduced in the industry in order to tackle a specific business requirements. Not to mention each of these security policy languages themselves evolved and enhanced during the last few years. Having said that, a quick research on security policy languages shows that the industry suffers from the lack of a framework for security policy languages. Such a framework would facilitate the management of security policies from an abstract point. In order to achieve that specific goal, the framework utilises an abstract security policy language that is independent of existing security policy languages yet capable of expressing policies written in those languages. Usage of interoperability framework for security policy languages as described above comes with major benefits that are categorised into two levels: short and long-term benefits. In short-term, industry and in particular multi-dimensional organisations that make use of multiple domains for different purposes would lower their security related costs by managing their security policies that are stretched across their environment and often managed locally. In the long term, usage of abstract security policy language that is independent of any existing security policy languages, gradually paves the way for standardising security policy languages. A goal that seems unreachable at this moment of time. Taking the above facts into account, the aim of this research is to introduce and develop a novel framework for security policy languages. Using such a framework would allow multi-dimensional organisations to use an abstract policy language to orchestrate all security policies from a single point, which could then be propagated across their environment. In addition, using such a framework would help security administrators to learn and use only one single, common abstract language to describe and model their environment(s)