Quantitatively Measure Access Control Mechanisms Across Different Operating Systems

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	Quantitatively Measure Access Control Mechanisms Across Different Operating Systems
	Cheng, Liang; Zhang, Yang; Han, Zhihui
	2013
会议名称	7th IEEE International Conference on Software Security and Reliability (SERE)
页码	50-59
会议日期	JUN 18-20, 2013
会议地点	Gaithersburg, MD
收录类别	CPCI
出版地	IEEE
ISBN	978-0-7695-5021-3; 978-1-4799-0406-8
部门归属	[Cheng, Liang; Zhang, Yang; Han, Zhihui] Chinese Acad Sci, Inst Software, Beijing, Peoples R China.
摘要	Access control mechanisms (ACM) play a critical role in protecting operating systems from malicious attacks. A variety of ACMs have been proposed till date, including discretionary access control (DAC) and mandatory access control (MAC). However, it is often challenging to evaluate and compare the quality of protection (QoP) of ACMs, especially when they are deployed on different platforms. In this paper, we propose an approach to quantitatively measure and compare the quality of ACMs. We introduce the notion of vulnerability profiles to capture the weakness of ACMs in protecting against attacks, and the notion of vulnerability coefficients as a numeric and platform-independent measurement of the protection quality of ACMs. Based on these two notions, our approach applies the Grey System Theory and an independent vulnerability scoring system to infer complete vulnerability profiles and to calculate fair and objective vulnerability coefficients for ACMs. To our knowledge, our approach is the first attempt for quantitative measurement and comparison of ACMs across different operating systems. Based on our approach, we implement a prototype tool called ACVAL that leverages logic programming to characterize, evaluate, and compare access control mechanisms. We apply ACVAL to three mainstream ACMs, and results that ACVAL is effective in evaluating access control mechanisms across different operating systems, a feature particularly useful to administrators of heterogenous IT systems.; Access control mechanisms (ACM) play a critical role in protecting operating systems from malicious attacks. A variety of ACMs have been proposed till date, including discretionary access control (DAC) and mandatory access control (MAC). However, it is often challenging to evaluate and compare the quality of protection (QoP) of ACMs, especially when they are deployed on different platforms. In this paper, we propose an approach to quantitatively measure and compare the quality of ACMs. We introduce the notion of vulnerability profiles to capture the weakness of ACMs in protecting against attacks, and the notion of vulnerability coefficients as a numeric and platform-independent measurement of the protection quality of ACMs. Based on these two notions, our approach applies the Grey System Theory and an independent vulnerability scoring system to infer complete vulnerability profiles and to calculate fair and objective vulnerability coefficients for ACMs. To our knowledge, our approach is the first attempt for quantitative measurement and comparison of ACMs across different operating systems. Based on our approach, we implement a prototype tool called ACVAL that leverages logic programming to characterize, evaluate, and compare access control mechanisms. We apply ACVAL to three mainstream ACMs, and results that ACVAL is effective in evaluating access control mechanisms across different operating systems, a feature particularly useful to administrators of heterogenous IT systems.
关键词	Security Measurement Vulnerability Profile Operating System Logic Programming
语种	英语
内容类型	会议论文
URI标识	http://ir.iscas.ac.cn/handle/311060/16550
专题	中国科学院软件研究所
推荐引用方式 GB/T 7714	Cheng, Liang,Zhang, Yang,Han, Zhihui. Quantitatively Measure Access Control Mechanisms Across Different Operating Systems[C]. IEEE,2013:50-59.