Requirements-driven mediation for collaborative security

Abstract

Security is concerned with the protection of assets from intentional harm. Secure systems provide capabilities that enable such protection to satisfy some security requirements. In a world increasingly populated with mobile and ubiquitous computing technology, the scope and boundary of security systems can be uncertain and can change. A single functional component, or even multiple components individually, are often insufficient to satisfy complex security requirements on their own.Adaptive security aims to enable systems to vary their protection in the face of changes in their operational environment. Collaborative security, which we propose in this paper, aims to exploit the selection and deployment of multiple, potentially heterogeneous, software-intensive components to collaborate in order to meet security requirements in the face of changes in the environment, changes in assets under protection and their values, and the discovery of new threats and vulnerabilities.However, the components that need to collaborate may not have been designed and implemented to interact with one another collaboratively. To address this, we propose a novel framework for collaborative security that combines adaptive security, collaborative adaptation and an explicit representation of the capabilities of the software components that may be needed in order to achieve collaborative security. We elaborate on each of these framework elements, focusing in particular on the challenges and opportunities afforded by (1) the ability to capture, represent, and reason about the capabilities of different software components and their operational context, and (2) the ability of components to be selected and mediated at runtime in order to satisfy the security requirements. We illustrate our vision through a collaborative robotic implementation, and suggest some areas for future work.

Feature-Driven Mediator Synthesis

“…The algorithm for mediator synthesis (Algorithm 1) starts by checking the basic configuration where G s is satisfied in the initial states (Lines 1-5). The algorithm then systematically explores the state space of the composition of the projected capabilities (C i for simplicity) to synthesise a mediator (Lines [6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20]. This exploration is guided by the selection of a capability whose initial state s 0 k will be further examined (Line 7).…”

“…In the context of cyber-physical systems, we particularly focus on physical security, that is the protection of material assets from physical attacks (e.g., theft) [52]. In a previous position paper [6], we propose collaborative security whereby both the selection and implementation of countermeasures are performed at runtime. In this paper, we propose and elaborate a framework for collaborative security that composes the capabilities of multiple, potentially heterogeneous, devices with variable (configurable) behaviours, in order to satisfy their requirements.…”

O2O service composition with social collaboration

“…Related to this work in self-adaptive software systems, Bennaceur et al [9] propose a vision to support collaborative security by mediating emerging components in an environment such that the constraints of individual components may be complemented or compensated by another to achieve opportunistic benefit such as availability and resilience. This work adds to the vision that social collaboration could happen among people when their constraints can be formally modeled and reasoned about.…”

The Many Facets of Mediation

“…Salehie et al [46] propose an approach in which a runtime model that combines goals, threats, and assets models is used to evaluate the cost and benefit of applying each security control (i.e., the mechanism that needs to be deployed in order to protect assets from harm) and choosing the most appropriate one. Collaborative security [2] uses mediation to implement the appropriate security controls by composing components' capabilities at runtime.…”