Managing security policy in a large distributed Web services environment

Many researchers have considered security policy management, including how to configure policies manually and even how to automatically generate security policies based on security requirements. Both can be error prone, especially when properties of the network topology change, because security requirements are usually not bound to any particular route path. Our DETER lab emulation results show that conflicts could be caused by these factors. Therefore, a systematic way to validate the correctness of the security policies is essential. This paper presents an approach, CLID (conflict and looping identification and detection), to verify whether a set of security policies (e.g. IPSec/VPN tunnels) satisfy the given security requirements, without causing any conflicts. This approach utilizes the definition of a security policy lo include network routing data as well as traffic selector information, thus it works for general network topologies. We also analyze and justify the correctness of the approach. The paper concludes with our simulation results and addresses future work.

18 - Windows Server 2003 Security Management

Security policy management is critical to meet organizational needs and reduce potential risks because almost every organization depends on computer networks and the Internet for their daily operations. It is therefore important to specify and enforce security policies effectively. However, as organizations grow, so do their networks increasing the difficulty of deploying a security policy, especially across heterogeneous systems. In this paper, we introduce a policy framework called Chameleos-x which is designed to enforce security policies consistently across security-aware systems with network services-primarily operating systems, firewalls, and intrusion detection systems. Throughout this paper, we focus on the design and architecture of Chameleos-x and demonstrate how our policy framework helps organizations implement security policies in changing, diversity-rich environments. We also describe our experimentation of Chameleos-x to demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed approach.

Analyzing and administrating system security policies is difficult as policies become larger and more complex every day. The paper present work toward analyzing security policies and sessions in terms of security properties. Our intuition was that combining both visualization tools that could benefit from the expert’s eyes, and software analysis abilities, should lead to a new interesting way to study and manage security policies as well as users’ sessions. Rather than trying to mine large and complex policies to find possible flaws within, work may concentrate on which potential flaws are really exploited by attackers.Actually, the paper presents some methods and tools to visualize and manipulate large SELinux policies, with algorithms allowing to search for paths, such as information flows within policies.The paper also introduces a complementary original approach to analyze and visualize real attack logs as session graphs or information flow graphs, or even aggregated multiple-sessions graphs.Our wishes is that in the future, when those tools will be mature enough, security administrator can then confront the statical security view given by the security policy analysis and the dynamical and real-world view given by the parts of attacks that most often occurred.

Resolve Security Policies Conflicts Through Semantics Matching Alignment

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to provide a framework for enhancing security policy management in the Grid.Design/methodology/approachThe Grid security policy reconciliation problem is presented. A generic view on the security policy notion is adopted and the security policy ontology notion is introduced and used.FindingsIn the course of this work it was found that, in order to enhance security policy management in the Grid, Grid entities should have the ability to negotiate their security policies. It was also found that, in order to achieve security policy negotiation, effective security policy semantics manipulation towards security policy reconciliation is needed. Finally, it was established, through the use of an example, that if appropriate means are used for security policy reconciliation then incompatible security policy representations can be transformed into compatible ones.Research limitations/implicationsResearch limitations stem from the adoption of a generic view on the security policy notion and the selection of identification and authentication security policies as the focal point of the proposed framework. Research implications include the possibility of examining how existing security policy reconciliation models can be incorporated in this generic framework. The possibility of investigating how such a framework can lead to a security policy knowledge management tool for Grid administrators is also demonstrated.Practical implicationsPractical implications of this work include the establishment of a common framework for security information exchange between Grid entities.Originality/valueThis paper proposes a framework for enhancing security policy management in the Grid. The proposed framework can be used by researchers as a reference and by security experts in order to reduce ambiguity concerning the interpretation of security policies expressed in different forms, by negotiating Grid entities.

It is our great pleasure to welcome you at the 3rd International Conference on Security of Information and Networks -- SIN 2010, organized in technical cooperation with the ACM Special Interest Group on Security, Audit and Control (SIGSAC). The conference, similar to SIN 2009 and SIN 2007, covers practically all aspects of security of information and networks. The SIN 2009 Conference had such sections as "Security Assessment, Policies, Educational Programs", "Security and Integrity Management and Models", "Cryptography, Security and Networks", "Access Control and Security Assurance", and "Attacks, Intrusion Detection". Based on accepted submissions, the following sections are presented at SIN 2010: Security Assessment, Policies, Privacy, and Educational Programs (12 papers);Management and Models of Security and Integrity (9 papers);Cryptography, Security, and Networks (10 papers);Attacks and Intrusion Detection (7 papers). We received 73 submissions of which only a small portion was accepted based on at least two independent reviews. At times three, even four, reviews were secured before a decision could be made. Among all the submissions, 31 were accepted as full papers (42%), 6 as short (8%), and 1 as a position statement (1%). The authors of the submitted papers hail from China, France, Germany, India, Iran, Italy, Japan, North Cyprus, Philippines, Portugal, Russia, Turkey, Ukraine, and USA. The papers of "Security Assessment, Policies, Privacy, and Educational Programs" section consider such topics as security standards and regulations, privacy, anonymity, educational issues, and digital forensics. "Management and Models of Security and Integrity" section papers consider various security management policies, models and architectures. "Cryptography, Security, and Networks" section features papers on cryptographic algorithms and protocols, as well as networks security. And finally, "Attacks and Intrusion Detection" section combines the papers discussing the detection and prevention of intrusions. SIN 2010 Conference gives researchers and practitioners a unique opportunity to share their perspectives with others interested in the various aspects of security of information and networks. We hope that these proceedings will serve as a valuable reference for security researchers and developers.

Firewalls are essential elements of security policy enforcement in modern networks. However, managing a filtering security policy, especially for enterprise networks, has become complex and error-prone. Filtering rules have to be carefully written and organized in order to correctly implement the security policy and avoid policy anomalies. In this paper, we present a set of techniques and algorithms that provide (1) automatic anomaly discovery for rule conflicts and potential problems in legacy firewalls, (2) anomaly-free policy editing for rule insertion, modification and removal, and (3) concise translation of filtering rules to high-level textual description for user visualization and verification. These techniques significantly simplify the management of any generic firewall policy written as filtering rules, while minimizing network vulnerability due to filtering policy misconfiguration.

Network function virtualization (NFV) is a new networking paradigm that virtualizes single network functions. NFV introduces several advantages compared to classical approaches, such as the dynamic provisioning of functionality or the implementation of scalable and reliable services (e.g., adding a new instance to support demands). NFV also allows the deployment of security controls, like firewalls or VPN gateways, as virtualized network functions. However, currently there is not an automatic way to select the security functions to enable and to configure the selected ones according to a set of user's security requirements. This paper presents a first approach towards the integration of network and security policy management into the NFV framework. By adding to the NFV architecture a new software component, the Policy Manager, we provide NFV with an easy and effective way for users to specify their security requirements and a process that hides all the details of the correct deployment and configuration of security functions. To perform its tasks, the Policy Manager uses policy refinement techniques.

This document describes the problem space and solution requirements for developing an IP Security Policy (IPSP) configuration and management framework. The IPSP architecture provides a scalable, decentralized framework for managing, discovering and negotiating the host and network security policies that govern access, authorization, authentication, confidentiality, data integrity, and other IP Security properties. This document highlights such architectural components and presents their functional requirements.

The new transnational security threats, such as terrorism, challenge traditional methods of European Union cooperation. In the era of threats to inter-state peace the Union engendered security through ‘passive’ integration in the form of the abolition of European borders. Today the EU is increasingly given the responsibility for creating security and safety, both externally and internally, by the means of ‘active’ security instruments such as the European Security and Defence Policy and the Solidarity Declaration of 2004. The challenge is that these policies and principles require a vision beyond that of a free market, common threat perceptions and effective coordination of the crisis management capacity of EU member states. This article argues that the practical needs following this qualitative step, such as the strategic engagement of new security actors and levels of EU governance on a long term basis, are very similar to the ones that the Open Method of Coordination has attempted to resolve in EU cooperation in the field of welfare policies. It suggests that this method should be used also to strengthen the Union security policy and crisis management capacity.

Security policies define the secure and nonsecure states in a system. Historically, organizations have used natural language security policies as a means to guide their security implementation and communicate their security goals to their employees and customers. Formal policies must be developed to enable a policy to automatically drive the operation of enforcing devices either through configuration or direct application to a policy‐aware infrastructure. Ideally, the natural language security policy is at the top of a refinement hierarchy that eventually reaches the security implementation such that each level is derived from the next higher level. In reality there are large gaps in the refinement hierarchy with many organizations only having natural language security policy and the implementation configuration files. This disconnect between natural language policy and implementation configuration means that an organization is often operating outside the bounds of their policy. By running outside of their policy bounds an organization has a higher likelihood of operating in an exploitable insecure state.

Role-based access control (RBAC) is one of the most popular access-control mechanisms because of its convenience for management and various security policies, such as cardinality constraints, mutually exclusive constraints, and user-capability constraints. Role-engineering technology is an effective method to construct RBAC systems. However, mining scales are very large, and there are redundancies in the mining results. Furthermore, conventional role-engineering methods not only do not consider more than one cardinality constraint, but also cannot ensure authorization security. To address these issues, this paper proposes a novel method called role-engineering optimization with cardinality constraints and user-oriented mutually exclusive constraints (REO_CCUMEC). First, we convert the basic role mining into a clustering problem, based on the similarities between users and use-partitioning and compression technologies, in order to eliminate redundancies, while maintaining its usability for mining roles. Second, we present three role-optimization problems and the corresponding algorithms for satisfying single or double cardinality constraints. Third, in order to evaluate the performance of authorizations in a role-engineering system, the maximal role assignments are implemented, while satisfying multiple security constraints. The theoretical analyses and experiments demonstrate the accuracy, effectiveness, and efficiency of the proposed method.

The security of the operating system has always been the basis of information systems. Several security frameworks have been proposed to enhance the security of the operating system, such as SELinux and AppArmor. However, the major drawback of these solutions is the complexity of the security policy configuration in which strong professionalism is required. Therefore, there are many related studies on optimizing the process of configuring security policies, but so far the involvement of security experts is still required. In this paper, we aim to further optimize the AppArmor's security policy generating process and propose ASPGen, which is a novel framework for generating AppArmor security policies automatically. ASPGen can autogenerate security policy with the least privilege and RBAC (Role-Based Access Control) for applications, and effectively alleviate the complexity and subjectivity in manually configuring AppArmor's security policy, as well as the security threats that result from the improper policy. We implement the prototype of ASPGen in Ubuntu 16.04. Unlike previous approaches, ASPGen does not depend on experts after the expert system is built. In our experimental evaluation, several typical applications are chosen and generate their AppArmor security policies with ASPGen. The completeness and precision of the generated policies are evaluated and a case of mysql-server is thoroughly analyzed by comparing the default AppArmor security policies with the policies generated by ASPGen. The evaluation demonstrates that the policy generated by ASPGen is complete, precise, and fine-grained, even without expert intervention. Our contribution can be further improved with a more general and intelligent security policy generating mechanism and is being extended to support other security frameworks including SELinux and SEAndroid.

In the globalized business world, financial information security management (FISM) and corporate risk management (CRM) have become critical elements for ensuring business sustainability and gaining a competitive advantage. The security of financial information not only protects the financial integrity of businesses but also supports long-term success by enhancing reputation management, regulatory compliance, and stakeholder trust. However, the necessity of addressing the relationship between financial information security and corporate risk management within a holistic framework has not been sufficiently emphasized in the literature, especially with the increasing threats in cybersecurity. This gap creates uncertainties regarding how businesses should integrate financial information security into their risk management strategies. The purpose of this study is to analyze the interaction between financial information security management and corporate risk management and to provide a practical and applicable framework for integrating financial information security into business risk management strategies. The study examines how financial information security management is integrated into corporate risk management processes (risk identification, assessment, response, and monitoring) and its impact on organizational performance (cost reduction, efficiency improvement, and competitive advantage). Considering major financial crises and cyberattacks, the global impact of financial information security threats on businesses, national economies, and the global financial system is increasingly being discussed. In this context, the study highlights the critical importance of FISM and CRM for businesses and presents concrete examples of the risks that may arise if these two concepts are not considered together (data breaches, financial losses, reputational damage, legal sanctions). The study systematically reviews existing approaches in the literature (such as ISO 27001 and the NIST Cybersecurity Framework) to contribute to the development of effective financial security and risk management policies for businesses.This study employs qualitative research methods, including a literature review and expert opinions. By analyzing current studies and industry reports, the relationship between financial information security and corporate risk management is examined in depth.In conclusion, integrating financial information security management with effective corporate risk management policies plays a crucial role in enhancing business sustainability, gaining a competitive advantage, and reducing costs. Businesses must adopt a holistic management approach that incorporates cybersecurity measures, financial risks, and regulatory requirements. This comprehensive approach is essential for ensuring long-term success and maintaining a competitive edge in today's dynamic business environment.