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| RESEARCH: Projects - QoSS |
Quality of Security Service
This body of work provides theoretical foundations and worked examples for adaptive security enforcement mechanisms that support dynamic security policies and services. These concepts can be applied to computing and communication systems at all levels of technology, from applications to base protocols and architectures. The resulting conceptual framework is called Quality of Security Service (QoSS), which encompasses many aspects of security research, including Quality of Protection, Adaptive Security, Dynamic Security, Policy-Based Access Control, and Risk Adaptable Access Control (RADAC).
In a distributed system, the a dynamic security policy implies the existence of an underlying mechanism for policy coordination. These mechanisms have different nomenclature in the literature, but here are called Resource Management Systems (RMS). Our research to support Quality of Security Service (QoSS) includes:
- How to support QoSS in a distributed architecture such as the Global Information Grid (GIG)
- How to map user security requirements to network security mechanism abstractions
- Understanding the range of security services and mechanisms the RMS scheduler must consider
- Understanding security-variant policies and mechanisms of emerging technologies
- How to measure quality of security service, including the cost of security resource overhead, economic costs and other factors
QoSS research started under the MSHN project sponsored by the DARPA/ITO Quorum Program, and is carried forward in current projects under NSF Cyber-Trust and related DARPA programs.
Motivation
Our goal is to utilize security as a fundamental architectural and management tool for increasing the availability of information while protecting it to a degree that is appropriate for the circumstances at the time of access. To be able to do that, users or network tasks should be presented with variable levels of security services and requirements so that they can specify the desired level of security for each dimension of security, for each information object they are responsible for. The RMS then will be able to modulate the level of security for each object, and as a result, be able to more effectively provide information while maintaining requested or required levels of security.
Progress
We have worked on a security service taxonomy and provided example mechanisms for each service. A QoSS costing framework and demonstration was developed (based on this taxonomy) which illustrates a method for quantifying costs related to the security service and for storing and retrieving security information. We have a security model for tasks, which incorporates the ideas of variant security services invoked by the task dynamic network modes, abstract security level choices, and resource utilization costs. The estimated costs can be fed into an RMS to facilitate the process of estimating efficient task schedules.
Worked Examples
One approach is to include security as an explicit dimension of QoS. This demonstration involves modulation of Internet Protocol Security (IPSec): using Internet Key Exchange (IKE) protocol and a trust management system for policy enforcement. We want to provide security associations with specific characteristics that depend on QoSS selections. Various experiments and measurements can then take place to help us understand the effect of QoSS for various security services and applications.
The Quality of Security Service Costing Demo
QoSS Costing Demo: Configurations / Instructions / Download Demo
The QoSS Costing Demo provides a GUI framework for modeling and managing task costs relating to security services. The demo comes with two fictitious task configurations (FTP and Secure Web Browser) which may be modeled, managed, or used as a basis for defining other tasks. The modeler allows task costs to be observed by changing mode and level parameters directly. The manager demonstrates how costs change as they are impacted by user needs or a resource monitor. Refer to the paper Security as a Dimension of Quality of Service in Active Service Environments for more information on this topic.
The QoSS Costing Demo is written in Java, and must be run from a system configured to support Java2. To install the demo, download and unzip WinZip file above. Run the demo by clicking on file "QoSS Demo.bat" or from a DOS window by typing "java QoSS". Links to the description of the task configurations and instructions are also found above.
Contributors
- Evie Spyropoulou, CISR
- Bruce Allen, CISR
- LT Chris Agar, USN
- LT Kevin Smith, USN
- Raj Mohan
Thesis Advisors
- Cynthia Irvine, CISR
- Tim Levin, CISR
Publications
Levin, T. E., Irvine, C. E., and Spyropoulou, E., "Quality of Security Service: Adaptive Security", to appear in The Handbook of Information Security, John Wiley & Sons, Inc. December 2005, (PDF)
Sypropoulou, E., Agar, C., Levin, T. E., and Irvine, C. E., "IPsec Modulation for Quality of Security Service", Proceedings of the International System Security Engineering Association Conference, Orlando Florida, 13 March 2002 (PDF)
Irvine, C. E., Levin, T. E., and Sypropoulou, E., "Security as a Dimension of Quality of Service in Active Service Environments", Proceedings of the International Workshop on Active Middleware Services, San Francisco, CA, 6 August 2001 (PDF)
Kim, J-K., Kidd, T., Siegel, H. J., Irvine, C. E., Levin, T. E., Hensgen, D. A., St. John, D., Prasanna, V. K., Freund, R. F., and Porter, N. W., "Collective Value QoS: A Performance Measure Framework for Distributed Heterogeneous Networks", Proceedings of the 15th International Parallel and Distributed Processing Symposium, pp. 810 -823, 23-27 April 2001 (PDF)
Sypropoulou, E., Levin, T. E., and Irvine, C. E., "Calculating Costs for Quality of Security Service", Proceedings of the 16th Computer Security Applications Conference, New Orleans, LA, December 2000, pp. 334-343. (PDF)
Irvine, C. E., and Levin, T. E., "Quality of Security Service", Proceedings of the New Security Paradigms Workshop, Ballycotton, Ireland, 18-22, September 2000. (PDF)
Irvine, C. E. and Levin, T. E., "Toward Quality of Security Service in a Resource Management System Benefit Function", Proceedings of the 2000 Heterogeneous Computing Workshop, pp. 133-139, May 2000 (PDF)
Kim, J-K, Hensgen, D.A., Kidd, T., Siegel, H.J., St. John, D., Irvine, C. E., Levin, T., Porter, N.W., Prasanna, V.K., and Freund, R.F., "A QoS Performance Measure Framework for Distributed Heterogeneous Networks", Proceedings of the 8th Euromicro Workshop on Parallel and Distributed Processing, Rhodos, Greece, pp. 18-27, January 2000 (PDF)
Irvine, C. E. and Levin, T. E., "Toward a Taxonomy and Costing Method for Security Services", Proceedings of the 15th Computer Security Application Conference, Phoenix, AZ, December 1999 (PDF)
Mohan, R., Levin, T. E. and Irvine, C. E., "An Editor for Adaptive XML-Based Policy Management of IPSEC", Annual Computer Security Applications Conference (ACSAC), December 8-12, 2003, Las Vegas, NV, USA (PDF)
Irvine, C. E., and Levin, T. E., "Security Approach for a Resource Management System", IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy, Oakland, CA, May 1999 (PDF)
Irvine, C. E., and Levin, T. E., "Overview of Quality of Security Service" IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy, Oakland, CA, May 2001 (PDF)
Spyropoulou, E.,, Levin, T. E., and Irvine, C. E., "Demonstration of Quality of Security Service Awareness for IPsec", NPS-CS-02-005, Naval Postgraduate School, September 2002 (PDF)
Evdoxia Spyropoulou, Levin, T. E., Irvine, C. E., "KeyNote Policy Files and Conversion to Disjunctive Normal Form for Use in IPsec", NPS-CS-02-001, Naval Postgraduate School, January 2002 (PDF)
Irvine, C. E. and Levin, T. E., "The Effects of Security Choices and Limits in a Metacomputing Environment", NPS-CS-00-004, Naval Postgraduate School, April 2000 (PDF)
Irvine, C. E. and Levin, T. E., "An Introduction to Quality of Security Service", NPS-CS-00-005, Naval Postgraduate School, April 2000 (PDF)
Spyropoulou, E., Levin, T. E., and Irvine, C. E., "Quality of Security Service Costing Demonstration for the MSHN Project", NPS-CS-00-007, Naval Postgraduate School, April 2000. (PDF)
Levin, T. E, Irvine, C. E., "Quality of Security Service in a Resource Management Benefit Function", NPS-CS-99-002, Naval Postgraduate School, November 1999 (PDF)
Irvine, C. E., Levin, T. E., "Toward a Taxonomy and Costing Method for Security Services", NPS-CS-99-007, Naval Postgraduate School, 15 June 1999 (PDF)
Levin, T. E., Irvine, C. E., "An Approach to Characterizing Resource Usage and User Preferences in Benefit Functions", NPS-CS-99-005, Naval Postgraduate School, 15 June 1999 (PDF)
Irvine, C. E., Levin, T. E., "A Note on Mapping User-Oriented Security Policies to Complex Mechanisms and Services", NPS-CS-99-008, Naval Postgraduate School, 15 June 1999 (PDF)
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