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Open Access Publications from the University of California

Scholarly Works (3 results)

  • Book
Computer Science (2017)

Resilience is a relatively new concept in computer security that is continuing to evolve. The research community has not settled on an exact definition for resilience, but most agree that this security property should include resistence to attack, damage recovery, and the ability for a system to learn and better resist such an attack in the future. Much of the existing research has focused on resilience solely in terms of availability, or in defining metrics to describe and compare the resilience of systems. The goal of this dissertation is to not only explore the possibility of a more general framework for resilience, but to also analyze the effectiveness of methods and technologies that can be used to measure and provide resilience.

The dissertation begins by covering common elements of computer security, providing exam- ples, addressing vulnerabilities and exploits, and suggesting potential solutions. In later sections, we examine the feasibility of the proposed solutions. Alternative solutions are compared in the context of a network’s priorities, abilities, and dependencies. Our work is inspired by the need for better security metrics in order to quantitatively evaluate and compare different systems and networks. A robust set of metrics that describe the security and recovery features of systems can provide a foundation for at least two key concepts: a network resilience communication protocol and a resilience testing framework. The communication protocol could help network administrators maintain and improve the resilience of their networks. It would facilitate communication between systems on the network so that potential threats can be quickly identified and so that changes can be made autonomously to reduce the impact of a threat without the need for human intervention. The testing framework can be used to test a system’s resilience to specific attacks, packaged as portable modules. Network administrators can use data and visualization results of this framework to make informed decisions about how to improve their resilience. The communication protocol may be able to analyze results from the testing framework to improve a network’s resilience. The goal of these two projects would be to develop solutions that can improve the resilience of networks in general, taking into account their size, security requirements, and critical functions.

    Cover page: Leveraging Security Metrics to Enhance System and Network Resilience
    • Article
    • Peer Reviewed
    UC Davis Previously Published Works (2017)
    This paper examines the security provided by different implementations of Address Space Layout Randomization (ASLR). ASLR is a security mechanism that increases control-flow integrity by making it more difficult for an attacker to properly execute a buffer-overflow attack, even in systems with vulnerable software. The strength of ASLR lies in the randomness of the offsets it produces in memory layouts. We compare multiple operating systems, each compiled for two different hardware architectures, and measure the amount of entropy provided to a vulnerable application. Our paper is the first publication that we are aware of that quantitatively compares the entropy of different ASLR implementations. In addition, we provide a method for remotely assessing the efficacy of a particular security feature on systems that are otherwise unavailable for analysis, and highlight the need for independent evaluation of security mechanisms.
      Cover page: ASLR: How Robust is the Randomness?
      • Article
      Computer Science (2016)
      Electronic voting machines are becoming an increasingly popular alternative to paper ballots. With this increase in use we must analyze how well these machines adhere to voting requirements, including those relating to security, privacy, and anonymity. This paper includes analysis of the security and auditing mechanisms of the open-source electronic voting system Scantegrity. We focus on Scantegrity, not to single it out as a vulnerable system, but because it is a popular system that has actually been used in practice. It may contain design flaws and vulnerabilities that might exist in other systems of similar designs, current or future. Therefore, it is our hope that the vulnerabilities that we bring to light will be considered by current and future designers of electronic voting systems, and that the solutions that we propose will also be considered as possible remediations.
        Cover page: Security Analysis of Scantegrity, an Electronic Voting System
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