Abstract
Persistent BNDC (P BNDC for short) is an information- flow securitypro perty for processes in dynamic contexts, i.e., contexts that can be reconfigured at runtime. We propose a method for transforming an arbitrary process into a process satisfying P_BNDC and show that the transformation preserves the “low level” observational semantics for a large class of processes. We also study how to efficiently verify P_BNDC by exploiting a characterization of it through a suitable notion of weak bisimulation up to high level actions. We define a second transformation over processes which allows us to reduce the problem of checking P_BNDC to the problem of testing a weak bisimulation between two processes. This approach is particularly appealing as it allows us to perform the P_BNDC check using already existing tools at a low time complexity.
This work has been partiallys upported by the MURST project “Modelli formali per la sicurezza” and the EU Contract IST-2001-32617 “Models and Types for Security in Mobile Distributed Systems” (MyThS).
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
M. Abadi. Secrecy by Typing in Security Protocols. Journal of the ACM, 46(5):749–786, 1999.
A. Aldini. Probabilistic information flow in a process algebra. In Proc. of the 12th International Conference on Concurrency Theory (CONCUR’01), pages 152–168. Springer LNCS 2154, August 2001.
C. Bodei, P. Degano, R. Focardi, and C. Priami. Primitives for Authentication in Process Algebras. Theoretical Computer Science, 2001. To appear.
T. Bolognesi and S. A. Smolka. Fundamental results for the verification of observational equivalence: A survey. In H. Rudin and C. H. West, editors, Prooc. of Int’l Conference on Protocol Specification, Testing and Verification (PSTV’87), pages 165–179. North-Holland, 1987.
N. A. Durgin, J. C. Mitchell, and D. Pavlovic. A Compositional Logic for Protocol Correctness. In Proc. of of the 14th IEEE Computer Security Foundations Workshop. IEEE Computer Society Press, 2001.
R. Focardi and R. Gorrieri. The Compositional Security Checker: A Tool for the Verification if Information Flow Security Properties. IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, 23(9):550–571, 1997.
R. Focardi and R. Gorrieri. Classification of Security Properties (Part I: Information Flow). In R. Focardi and R. Gorrieri, editors, Foundations of Security Analysis and Design, volume 2171 of LNCS. Springer, 2001.
R. Focardi, R. Gorrieri, and F. Martinelli. Information-flow analysis in a discretetime process algebra. In Proc. of of the 13th IEEE Computer Security Foundations Workshop. IEEE Computer Society Press, 2001.
R. Focardi, C. Piazza, and S. Rossi. Proof methods for bisimulation based information flow security. In A. Cortesi, editor, Proc. of Int. Workshop on Verification, Model Checking and Abstract Interpretation, LNCS. Springer, 2002.
R. Focardi and S. Rossi. Information flow security in dynamic contexts. In Proc. of of the 15th IEEE Computer Security Foundations Workshop. IEEE Computer Society Press, 2002.
J. A. Goguen and J. Meseguer. Security Policy and Security Models. In Proc. of the 1982 Symposium on Security and Privacy, pages 11–20. IEEE Computer Society Press, 1982.
Jan Jürjens. Secure information flow for concurrent processes. In Proc. of International Conference on Concurrency Theory (Concur 2000). LNCS 1877, Springer-Verlag, August 2000.
Heiko Mantel and Andrei Sabelfeld. A generic approach to the security of multithreaded programs. In Proc. of of the 14th IEEE Computer Security Foundations Workshop. IEEE Computer Society Press, 2001.
D. McCullough. “A Hookup Theorem for Multilevel Security”. IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, pages 563–568, June 1990.
J. McLean. “A General Theory of Composition for Trace Sets Closed Under Selective Interleaving Functions”. In Proceedings of the 1994 IEEE Symposium on Research in Security and Privacy. IEEE Computer Society Press, 1994.
R. Milner. Communication and Concurrency. Prentice-Hall, 1989.
L. C. Paulson. Proving Properties of Security Protocols by Induction. In Proc. of the IEEE Computer Security Foundations Workshop, pages 70–83. IEEE Computer Society Press, 1997.
Roberto Gorrieri Riccardo Focardi and Roberto Segala. A new definition of multilevel security. In Proc. of Workshop on Issues in the Theory of Security (WITS’ 00), (P. Degano, ed.), July 2000.
A. Sabelfeld and D. Sands. Probabilistic Noninterference for Multi-threaded Programs. In Proc. of the IEEE Computer Security Foundations Workshop, pages 200–215. IEEE Computer Society Press, 2000.
S. Schneider. Verifying Authentication Protocols in CSP. IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, 24(9), 1998.
V. Shmatikov and J. C. Mitchell. Analysis of a Fair Exchange Protocol. In Proc. of 7th Annual Symposium on Network and Distributed System Security (NDSS 2000), pages 119–128. Internet Society, 2000.
G. Smith and D. M. Volpano. Secure Information Flow in a Multi-threaded Imperative Language. In Proc. of 25th ACM SIGPLAN-SIGACT Symposium on Principles of Programming Languages (POPL98), pages 355–364. ACM Press, 1998.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2002 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Bossi, A., Focardi, R., Piazza, C., Rossi, S. (2002). Transforming Processes to Check and Ensure Information Flow Security* . In: Kirchner, H., Ringeissen, C. (eds) Algebraic Methodology and Software Technology. AMAST 2002. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 2422. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-45719-4_19
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-45719-4_19
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-44144-1
Online ISBN: 978-3-540-45719-0
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive