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Succour to the Confused Deputy

Types for Capabilities

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Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNPSE,volume 7705))

Abstract

The possession of secrets is a recurrent theme in security literature and practice. We present a refinement type system, based on indexed intuitonist S4 necessity, for an object calculus with explicit locations (corresponding to principals) to control the principals that may possess a secret. Type safety ensures that if the execution of a well-typed program leads to a configuration with an object p located at principal a, then a possesses the capability to p. We illustrate the type system with simple examples drawn from web applications, including an illustration of how Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) vulnerabilities may manifest themselves as absurd refinements on object declarations during type checking.

A fuller version of the paper is available at fpl.cs.depaul.edu/jriely/papers/2012-aplas.pdf.

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Jagadeesan, R., Pitcher, C., Riely, J. (2012). Succour to the Confused Deputy. In: Jhala, R., Igarashi, A. (eds) Programming Languages and Systems. APLAS 2012. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 7705. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-35182-2_6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-35182-2_6

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-35181-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-35182-2

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