Biblio

Most web applications have critical bugs (faults) affecting their security, which makes them vulnerable to attacks by hackers and organized crime. To prevent these security problems from occurring it is of utmost importance to understand the typical software faults. This paper contributes to this body of knowledge by presenting a field study on two of the most widely spread and critical web application vulnerabilities: SQL Injection and XSS. It analyzes the source code of security patches of widely used web applications written in weak and strong typed languages. Results show that only a small subset of software fault types, affecting a restricted collection of statements, is related to security. To understand how these vulnerabilities are really exploited by hackers, this paper also presents an analysis of the source code of the scripts used to attack them. The outcomes of this study can be used to train software developers and code inspectors in the detection of such faults and are also the foundation for the research of realistic vulnerability and attack injectors that can be used to assess security mechanisms, such as intrusion detection systems, vulnerability scanners, and static code analyzers.

This paper discusses strategies for I/O sharing in Multiple Independent Levels of Security (MILS) systems mostly deployed in the special environment of avionic systems. MILS system designs are promising approaches for handling the increasing complexity of functionally integrated systems, where multiple applications run concurrently on the same hardware platform. Such integrated systems, also known as Integrated Modular Avionics (IMA) in the aviation industry, require communication to remote systems located outside of the hosting hardware platform. One possible solution is to provide each partition, the isolated runtime environment of an application, a direct interface to the communication's hardware controller. Nevertheless, this approach requires a special design of the hardware itself. This paper discusses efficient system architectures for I/O sharing in the environment of high-criticality embedded systems and the exemplary analysis of Free scale's proprietary Data Path Acceleration Architecture (DPAA) with respect to generic hardware requirements. Based on this analysis we also discuss the development of possible architectures matching with the MILS approach. Even though the analysis focuses on avionics it is equally applicable to automotive architectures such as Auto SAR.

Multiple Security Domains Nondeducibility, MSDND, yields results even when the attack hides important information from electronic monitors and human operators. Because MSDND is based upon modal frames, it is able to analyze the event system as it progresses rather than relying on traces of the system. Not only does it provide results as the system evolves, MSDND can point out attacks designed to be missed in other security models. This work examines information flow disruption attacks such as Stuxnet and formally explains the role that implicit trust in the cyber security of a cyber physical system (CPS) plays in the success of the attack. The fact that the attack hides behind MSDND can be used to help secure the system by modifications to break MSDND and leave the attack nowhere to hide. Modal operators are defined to allow the manipulation of belief and trust states within the model. We show how the attack hides and uses the operator's trust to remain undetected. In fact, trust in the CPS is key to the success of the attack.

Despite the abundance of information security guidelines, system developers have difficulties implementing technical solutions that are reasonably secure. Security patterns are one possible solution to help developers reuse security knowledge. The challenge is that it takes experts to develop security patterns. To address this challenge, we need a framework to identify and assess patterns and pattern application practices that are accessible to non-experts. In this paper, we narrowly define what we mean by patterns by focusing on requirements patterns and the considerations that may inform how we identify and validate patterns for knowledge reuse. We motivate this discussion using examples from the requirements pattern literature and theory in cognitive psychology.

The home computer user is often said to be the weakest link in computer security. They do not always follow security advice, and they take actions, as in phishing, that compromise themselves. In general, we do not understand why users do not always behave safely, which would seem to be in their best interest. This paper reviews the literature of surveys and studies of factors that influence security decisions for home computer users. We organize the review in four sections: understanding of threats, perceptions of risky behavior, efforts to avoid security breaches and attitudes to security interventions. We find that these studies reveal a lot of reasons why current security measures may not match the needs or abilities of home computer users and suggest future work needed to inform how security is delivered to this user group.