A Philosophy of Security Architecture Design

Abstract

Digital systems are almost always vulnerable, yet we increasingly depend on these systems. There will be many threats towards these system. In a fully networked system, the vulnerabilities will literally be exposed to the whole world. The exposed vulnerabilities may be transformed into attacks. To counter this state of "vulnerability", the standard remedy is to conduct security requirements analysis and security threat modeling. Threats are assessed, and various countermeasures are devised. The totality of these measures may be described as a security architecture. The goal of a security architecture will largely be to make the system robust and resilient in the face of an adversary. However, we shall argue that this is not enough. Security architecture designs should go one step further, and actually improve the defenses when faced with hostile actions. That is, the security architectures must become antifragile.

Tutorial on systems with antifragility to downtime

“…In this paper, we consider how to avoid system downtime due to natural incidents caused by vulnerabilities. Two earlier papers [5,23] discuss how to prevent downtime due to attackers that intentionally exploit vulnerabilities.…”

“…Many published principles [2,5,7,11,51,52] provide foundations for various aspects of antifragility (see [5,7,11] for examples). Although this paper's author has only discussed principles for antifragility to downtime, the presented principles are valid for other types of antifragility, including antifragility to malware attacks [2].…”

“…The literature discusses many types of antifragility in, for example, cybersecurity [3][4][5], software [6][7][8], complex adaptive systems [9][10][11] and biology [12]. However, the current tutorial focuses solely on avoiding downtime in socio-technical systems that change over time.…”

A Systematic Evaluation of Artificial Intelligence's Impact on the Landscape of Threat Modeling

“…It involves a structured analysis of a system's components, data flows, and potential attack vectors to evaluate the likelihood and impact of different security risks. By understanding potential threats early in the development process, organizations can implement robust security measures to safeguard their assets and sensitive information [1].…”