System Assurance: Beyond Detecting Vulnerabilities

• Authors: Nikolai Mansourov;Djenana Campara
• Venue: System Assurance: Beyond Detecting Vulnerabilities
• Year: 2010

In this day of frequent acquisitions and perpetual application integrations, systems are often an amalgamation of multiple programming languages and runtime platforms using new and legacy content. Systems of such mixed origins are increasingly vulnerable to defects and subversion. System Assurance: Beyond Detecting Vulnerabilities addresses these critical issues. As a practical resource for security analysts and engineers tasked with system assurance, the book teaches you how to use the Object Management Group驴s (OMG) expertise and unique standards to obtain accurate knowledge about your existing software and compose objective metrics for system assurance. OMG驴s Assurance Ecosystem provides a common framework for discovering, integrating, analyzing, and distributing facts about your existing enterprise software. Its foundation is the standard protocol for exchanging system facts, defined as the OMG Knowledge Discovery Metamodel (KDM). In addition, the Semantics of Business Vocabularies and Business Rules (SBVR) defines a standard protocol for exchanging security policy rules and assurance patterns. Using these standards together, you will learn how to leverage the knowledge of the cybersecurity community and bring automation to protect your system.Provides end-to-end methodology for systematic, repeatable, and affordable System Assurance.Includes an overview of OMG Software Assurance Ecosystem protocols that integrate risk, architecture and code analysis guided by the assurance argument.Case Study illustrating the steps of the System Assurance Methodology using automated tools.Table of ContentsContents 1. Why Hackers know more about our systems 1.1 Operating in cyberspace involves risks 1.2 Why Hackers are repeatadly successful 1.2.1 What are the challenges in defending cybersystems? 1.2.1.1 Difficulties in understanding and assessing risks 1.2.1.2 Understanding Development Trends 1.2.1.3 Comprehending Systems驴 Complexity 1.2.1.4 Understanding Assessment Practices and their Limitations 1.2.1.5 Vulnerability Scanning Technologies and their Issues 1.3 Where do We Go from Here 1.3.1 Systematic and repeatable defense at affordable cost 1.3.2 The OMG Software Assurance Ecosystem 1.3.3 Linguistic Modeling to manage the common vocabulary 1.4 Who should read this book 2 Chapter: Confidence as a Product 2.1 Are you confident that there is no black cat in the dark room? 2.2 The Nature of Assurance 2.2.1 Engineering, Risk and Assurance 2.2.2 Assurance Case (AC) 2.2.2.1 Contents of an Assurance Case 2.2.2.2 Structure of the Assurance Argument 2.3 Overview of the Assurance Process 2.3.1 Producing Confidence 2.3.1.1 Economics of Confidence 3 Chapter: How to Build Confidence 3.1 Assurance in the System Lifecycle 3.2 Activities of System Assurance Process 3.2.1 Project Definition 3.2.2 Project Preparation 3.2.3 Assurance argument development 3.2.4 Architecture Security Analysis 3.2.4.1 Discover System Facts 3.2.4.2 Threat identification 3.2.4.3 Safeguard Identification 3.2.4.4 Vulnerability detection 3.2.4.5 Security Posture Analysis 3.2.5 Evidence analysis 3.2.6 Assurance Case Delivery 4 Chapter: Knowledge of System as of Element in Cybersecurity argument 4.1 What is system 4.2 Boundaries of the system 4.3 Resolution of the system description 4.4 Conceptual commitment for system descriptions 4.5 System architecture 4.6 Example of an architecture framework 4.7 Elements of System 4.8 System Knowledge Involves Multiple Viewpoints 4.9 Concept of operations (CONOP) 4.10 Network Configuration 4.11 System life cycle and assurance 4.11.1 System life cycle stages 4.11.2 Enabling Systems 4.11.3 Supply Chain 4.11.4 System life cycle processes 4.11.5 The implications to the common vocabulary and the integrated system model 5 Chapter: Knowledge of Risk as an Element of Cybersecurity argument 5.1 Introduction 5.2 Basic cybersecurity elements 5.3 Common vocabulary for risk analysis 5.3.1 Defining diScernable vocabulary for Assets 5.3.2 Threats and hazards 5.3.3 Defining dicernable vocabulary for Injury and Impact 5.3.4 Defining dicernable vocabulary for threats 5.3.5 Threat scenarios and attacks 5.3.6 Defining dicernable vocabulary for vulnerabilities 5.3.7 Defining dicernable vocabulary for safeguards 5.3.8 Risk 5.4 Systematic Threat Identification 5.5 Assurance Strategies 5.5.1 Injury Argument 5.5.2 Entry point argument 5.5.3 Threat argument 5.5.4 Vulnerability argument 5.5.5 Security requirement argument 5.5.6 Assurance of the threat identification 6 Chapter: Knowledge of Vulnerabilities as an Element of Cybersecurity Argument 6.1 Vulnerability as part of system knowledege 6.1.1 What is Vulnerability 6.1.2 Vulnerability as Unit of Knowledge: The History of Vulnerability 6.1.3 Vulnerabilities and the Phases of the System Life Cycle 6.1.4 Enumeration of Vulnerabilities as a Knowledge Product 6.1.5 Vulnerability Databases 6.1.5.1 US-CERT 6.1.5.2 Open Source Vulnerability Database (OSVDB) 6.1.6 Vulnerability Life Cycle 6.2 NIST Security Content Automation Protocol (SCAP) Ecosystem 6.2.1 Overview of SCAP Ecosystem 6.2.2 Information Exchanges under SCAP 7 Chapter: Vulnerability Patterns as a New Assurance Content 7.1 Beyond Current SCAP Ecosystem 7.2 Vulnerability Patterns 7.3 Software Fault Patterns 7.3.1 Safeguard category of clusters and corresponding Software fault Patterns (SFPs) 7.3.1.1 Authentication 7.3.1.2 Access Control 7.3.1.3 Privilege 7.3.2 Direct Impact category of clusters and corresponding Software fault Patterns (SFPs) 7.3.2.1 Information Leak 7.3.2.2 Memory Management 7.3.2.3 Memory Access 7.3.2.4 Path Resolution 7.3.2.5 Tainted Input 8 Chapter: OMG Software Assurance Ecosystem 8.1 Introduction 8.2 OMG Assurance Ecosystem: towards collaborative cybersecurity 9 Chapter: Common Fact Model for Assurance Content 9.1 Assurance Content 9.2 The Objectives 9.3 Design criteria for information exchange protocols 9.4 Tradeoffs 9.5 Information Exchange Protocols 9.6 The Nuts and Bolts of Fact Models 9.6.1 Objects 9.6.2 Noun Concepts 9.6.3 Facts about existence of objects 9.6.4 Individual concepts 9.6.5 Relations between concepts 9.6.6 Verb concepts 9.6.7 Characteristics 9.6.8 Situational concepts 9.6.9 Viewpoints and views 9.6.10 Information exchanges and assurance 9.6.11 Fact-oriented Integration 9.6.12 Automatic derivation of facts 9.7 The representation of facts 9.7.1 Representing facts in XML 9.7.2 Representing facts and schemes in Prolog 9.8 The common schema 9.9 System assurance facts  10 Chapter: Linguistic Models 10.1 Fact Models and Linguistic Models 10.2 Background 10.3 Overview of SBVR 10.4 How to use SBVR 10.4.1 Simple vocabulary 10.4.2 Vocabulary Entries 10.4.3 Statements 10.4.4 Statements as formal definitions of new concepts 10.4.4.1 Definition of a Noun Concept 10.4.4.2 Definition of a Verb Concept 10.4.4.3 The General Concept caption 10.5 SBVR Vocabulary for describing Elementary Meanings 10.6 SBVR Vocabulary for describing Representations 10.7 SBVR Vocabulary for describing Extensions 10.8 Reference schemes 10.9 SBVR Semantic Formulations 10.9.1 Defining new terms and facts types using SBVR 11 Chapter: Standard Protocol for Exchanging System Facts 11.1 Background 11.2 Organization of the KDM vocabulary 11.2.1 Infrastructure Layer 11.2.2 Program Elements Layer 11.2.3 Resource Layer 11.2.4 Abstractions Layer 11.3 The process of discovering system facts 11.4 Discovering the baseline system facts 11.4.1 Inventory views 11.4.1.1 Inventory Viewpoint vocabulary in SBVR 11.4.2 Build Views 11.4.3 Data views 11.4.4 UI views 11.4.5 Code views 11.4.5.1 Code views: Elements of Structure 11.4.5.2 Code views: Elements of Behavior 11.4.5.3 Micro KDM 11.4.6 Platform views 11.4.7 Event views 11.5 Performing architecture analysis 11.5.1 Structure Views 11.5.2 Conceptual Views 11.5.2.1 Linguistic Viewpoint 11.5.2.2 Behavior Viewpoint 12 Chapter: Case Study 12.1 Introduction 12.2 Background 12.3 Concepts of operations 12.3.1 Executive summary 12.3.2 Purpose 12.3.3 Locations 12.3.4 Operational Authority 12.3.5 System Architecture 12.3.5.1 Clicks2Bricks Web server 12.3.5.2 Database server 12.3.5.3 SMTP server 12.3.6 System Assumptions 12.3.7 External dependencies 12.3.8 Implementation Assumptions 12.3.9 Interfaces with Other Systems 12.3.10 Security assumptions 12.3.11 External Security Notes 12.3.12 Internal Security notes 12.4 Business vocabulary and security policy for Clicks2Bricks in SBVR 12.5 Building the integrated system model 12.5.1 Building the baseline system model 12.5.2 Enhancing the baseline model with the system architecture facts 12.6 Mapping cybersecurity facts to system facts 12.7 Assurance case