SafeWeb: A Middleware for Securing Ruby-Based Web Applications

Web applications in many domains such as healthcare and finance must process sensitive data, while complying with legal policies regarding the release of different classes of data to different parties. Currently, software bugs may lead to irreversible disclosure of confidential data in multi-tier web applications. An open challenge is how developers can guarantee these web applications only ever release sensitive data to authorised users without costly, recurring security audits. Our solution is to provide a trusted middleware that acts as a “safety net” to event-based enterprise web applications by preventing harmful data disclosure before it happens. We describe the design and implementation of SafeWeb, a Ruby-based middleware that associates data with security labels and transparently tracks their propagation at different granularities across a multi-tier web architecture with storage and complex event processing. For efficiency, maintainability and ease-of-use, SafeWeb exploits the dynamic features of the Ruby programming language to achieve label propagation and data flow enforcement. We evaluate SafeWeb by reporting our experience of implementing a web-based cancer treatment application and deploying it as part of the UK National Health Service (NHS)

An Overview of Automotive Service-Oriented Architectures and Implications for Security Countermeasures

New requirements from the customers\u27 and manufacturers\u27 point of view such as adding new software functions during the product life cycle require a transformed architecture design for future vehicles. The paradigm of signal-oriented communication established for many years will increasingly be replaced by service-oriented approaches in order to increase the update and upgrade capability. In this article, we provide an overview of current protocols and communication patterns for automotive architectures based on the service-oriented architecture (SOA) paradigm and compare them with signal-oriented approaches. Resulting challenges and opportunities of SOAs with respect to information security are outlined and discussed. For this purpose, we explain different security countermeasures and present a state of the section of automotive approaches in the fields of firewalls, Intrusion Detection Systems (IDSs) and Identity and Access Management (IAM). Our final discussion is based on an exemplary hybrid architecture (signal- and service-oriented) and examines the adaptation of existing security measures as well as their specific security features

Protection of Information and Communications in Distributed Systems and Microservices

Distributed systems have been a topic of discussion since the 1980s, but the adoption of microservices has raised number of system components considerably. With more decentralised distributed systems, new ways to handle authentication, authorisation and accounting (AAA) are needed, as well as ways to allow components to communicate between themselves securely. New standards and technologies have been created to deal with these new requirements and many of them have already found their way to most used systems and services globally. After covering AAA and separate access control models, we continue with ways to secure communications between two connecting parties, using Transport Layer Security (TLS) and other more specialised methods such as the Google-originated Secure Production Identity Framework for Everyone (SPIFFE). We also discuss X.509 certificates for ensuring identities. Next, both older time- tested and newer distributed AAA technologies are presented. After this, we are looking into communication between distributed components with both synchronous and asynchronous communication mechanisms, as well as into the publish/subscribe communication model popular with the rise of the streaming platform. This thesis also explores possibilities in securing communications between distributed endpoints and ways to handle AAA in a distributed context. This is showcased in a new software component that handles authentication through a separate identity endpoint using the OpenID Connect authentication protocol and stores identity in a Javascript object-notation formatted and cryptographically signed JSON Web Token, allowing stateless session handling as the token can be validated by checking its signature. This enables fast and scalable session management and identity handling for any distributed system

Security Policies That Make Sense for Complex Systems: Comprehensible Formalism for the System Consumer

Information Systems today rarely are contained within a single user workstation, server, or networked environment. Data can be transparently accessed from any location, and maintained across various network infrastructures. Cloud computing paradigms commoditize the hardware and software environments and allow an enterprise to lease computing resources by the hour, minute, or number of instances required to complete a processing task. An access control policy mediates access requests between authorized users of an information system and the system\u27s resources. Access control policies are defined at any given level of abstraction, such as the file, directory, system, or network, and can be instantiated in layers of increasing (or decreasing) abstraction. For the system end-user, the functional allocation of security policy to discrete system components, or subsystems, may be too complex for comprehension. In this dissertation, the concept of a metapolicy, or policy that governs execution of subordinate security policies, is introduced. From the user\u27s perspective, the metapolicy provides the rules for system governance that are functionally applied across the system\u27s components for policy enforcement. The metapolicy provides a method to communicate updated higher-level policy information to all components of a system; it minimizes the overhead associated with access control decisions by making access decisions at the highest level possible in the policy hierarchy. Formal definitions of policy often involve mathematical proof, formal logic, or set theoretic notation. Such policy definitions may be beyond the capability of a system user who simply wants to control information sharing. For thousands of years, mankind has used narrative and storytelling as a way to convey knowledge. This dissertation discusses how the concepts of storytelling can be embodied in computational narrative and used as a top-level requirements specification. The definition of metapolicy is further discussed, as is the relationship between the metapolicy and various access control mechanisms. The use of storytelling to derive the metapolicy and its applicability to formal requirements definition is discussed. The author\u27s hypothesis on the use of narrative to explain security policy to the system user is validated through the use of a series of survey instruments. The survey instrument applies either a traditional requirements specification language or a brief narrative to describe a security policy and asks the subject to interpret the statements. The results of this research are promising and reflect a synthesis of the disciplines of neuroscience, security, and formal methods to present a potentially more comprehensible knowledge representation of security policy

Data trust framework using blockchain and smart contracts

Lack of trust is the main barrier preventing more widespread data sharing. The lack of transparent and reliable infrastructure for data sharing prevents many data owners from sharing their data. Data trust is a paradigm that facilitates data sharing by forcing data controllers to be transparent about the process of sharing and reusing data. Blockchain technology has the potential to present the essential properties for creating a practical and secure data trust framework by transforming current auditing practices and automatic enforcement of smart contracts logic without relying on intermediaries to establish trust. Blockchain holds an enormous potential to remove the barriers of traditional centralized applications and propose a distributed and transparent administration by employing the involved parties to maintain consensus on the ledger. Furthermore, smart contracts are a programmable component that provides blockchain with more flexible and powerful capabilities. Recent advances in blockchain platforms toward smart contracts' development have revealed the possibility of implementing blockchain-based applications in various domains, such as health care, supply chain and digital identity. This dissertation investigates the blockchain's potential to present a framework for data trust. It starts with a comprehensive study of smart contracts as the main component of blockchain for developing decentralized data trust. Interrelated, three decentralized applications that address data sharing and access control problems in various fields, including healthcare data sharing, business process, and physical access control system, have been developed and examined. In addition, a general-purpose application based on an attribute-based access control model is proposed that can provide trusted auditability required for data sharing and access control systems and, ultimately, a data trust framework. Besides auditing, the system presents a transparency level that both access requesters (data users) and resource owners (data controllers) can benefit from. The proposed solutions have been validated through a use case of independent digital libraries. It also provides a detailed performance analysis of the system implementation. The performance results have been compared based on different consensus mechanisms and databases, indicating the system's high throughput and low latency. Finally, this dissertation presents an end-to-end data trust framework based on blockchain technology. The proposed framework promotes data trustworthiness by assessing input datasets, effectively managing access control, and presenting data provenance and activity monitoring. A trust assessment model that examines the trustworthiness of input data sets and calculates the trust value is presented. The number of transaction validators is defined adaptively with the trust value. This research provides solutions for both data owners and data users’ by ensuring the trustworthiness and quality of the data at origin and transparent and secure usage of the data at the end. A comprehensive experimental study indicates the presented system effectively handles a large number of transactions with low latency