Protocol Vulnerability Analysis

Citation

• B. Hashii, S. Malabarba, R. Pandey, and M. Bishop, “Supporting Reconfigurable Security Policies for Mobile Programs”, Technical Report CSE-2000-8, Dept. of Computer Science, University of California at Davis, Davis, CA 95616-8562 (2000).

Paper

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Abstract

Programming models that support code migration have gained prominence, mainly due to a widespread shift from stand-alone to distributed applications. Although appealing in terms of system design and extensibility, mobile programs are a security risk and require strong access control. Further, the mobile code environment is fluid, i.e. the programs and resources located on a host may change rapidly, necessitating an extensible security model. In this paper, we present the design and implementation of a security infrastructure. The model is built around an event-response mechanism, in which a response is executed when a security-related event occurs. We support a fine-grained, conditional access control language, and enforce policies by instrumenting the bytecode of protected classes. This method enhances efficiency and promotes separation of concerns between security policy and program specification. This infrastructure also allows security policies to change at runtime, adapting to varying system state, intrusion, and other events.