Improving multi-tier security using redundant authentication

ABSTRACT

Multi-tier web server systems are used in many important contexts and their security is a major cause of concern. Such systems can exploit strategies like least privilege to make lower tiers more secure in the presence of compromised higher tiers. In this paper, we investigate an extension of this technique in which higher tiers are required to provide evidence of the authentication of principals when they make requests of lower tiers. This concept, which we call redundant authentication, enables lower tiers to provide security guarantees that improve significantly over current least privilege strategies. We validate this technique by applying it to a practical Building Automation System (BAS) application, where we explore the use of redundant authentication in conjunction with an authentication proxy to enable interoperation with existing enterprise authentication services.

REFERENCES

• 1: Anurag Acharya , Mandar Raje, MAPbox: using parameterized behavior classes to confine untrusted applications, Proceedings of the 9th conference on USENIX Security Symposium, p.1-1, August 14-17, 2000, Denver, Colorado
• 2: David Brumley , Dawn Song, Privtrans: automatically partitioning programs for privilege separation, Proceedings of the 13th conference on USENIX Security Symposium, p.5-5, August 09-13, 2004, San Diego, CA
• 3: Petros Efstathopoulos , Maxwell Krohn , Steve VanDeBogart , Cliff Frey , David Ziegler , Eddie Kohler , David Mazières , Frans Kaashoek , Robert Morris, Labels and event processes in the asbestos operating system, Proceedings of the twentieth ACM symposium on Operating systems principles, October 23-26, 2005, Brighton, United Kingdom
• 4: P. Ehrlich and T. Considine (Chairs). Open Building Information Exchange (oBIX) version 1.0. OASIS Committee Speci.cation, December 2006. http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/tc_home.php?wg_abbrev=obix.
• 5: T. Garfinkel, B. Pfa., and M. Rosenblum. Ostia: A delegating architecture for secure system call interposition. In Network and Distributed System Security Symposium, 2004.
• 6: Ian Goldberg , David Wagner , Randi Thomas , Eric A. Brewer, A secure environment for untrusted helper applications confining the Wily Hacker, Proceedings of the 6th conference on USENIX Security Symposium, Focusing on Applications of Cryptography, p.1-1, July 22-25, 1996, San Jose, California
• 7: Patricia P. Griffiths , Bradford W. Wade, An authorization mechanism for a relational database system, ACM Transactions on Database Systems (TODS), v.1 n.3, p.242-255, Sept. 1976 [doi>10.1145/320473.320482]
• 8: Java. http://java.sun.com/.
• 9: E. Kubaitis. Bluestem overview. Web Page, August 2000. https://www-s4.uiuc.edu/bluestem-notes/.
• 10: K. Lawrence and C. Kaler (Chairs). Web Services Security (WS-Security) X.509 Certificate Token profile 1.1. OASIS Standard Speci.cation, February 2006. http://docs.oasis-open.org/wss/v1.1/ wss-v1.1-spec-os-x509TokenProfile.pdf.
• 11: Microsoft. Active directory overview. Web Page, Janurary 2005. http://technet2.microsoft.com/windowsserver/en/library/7c981583-cf41-4e6c-b1f6-5b8863475ede1033.mspx?mfr=true.
• 12: OPC Task Force. OPC overview. OPC White Paper, October 1998. http://www.opcfoundation.org/DownloadFile.aspx/General/OPC\%20Overview\%201.00.pdf?RI=1.
• 13: David S. Peterson , Matt Bishop , Raju Pandey, A Flexible Containment Mechanism for Executing Untrusted Code, Proceedings of the 11th USENIX Security Symposium, p.207-225, August 05-09, 2002
• 14: Niels Provos, Improving host security with system call policies, Proceedings of the 12th conference on USENIX Security Symposium, p.18-18, August 04-08, 2003, Washington, DC
• 15: Niels Provos , Markus Friedl , Peter Honeyman, Preventing privilege escalation, Proceedings of the 12th conference on USENIX Security Symposium, p.16-16, August 04-08, 2003, Washington, DC
• 16: RSA Laboratories. Public-key cryptography standards (PKCS) #7: Cryptographic message syntax standard version 1.6. RSA Laboratories Technical Note, May 1997. http://www.rsa.com/rsalabs/node.asp?id=2129.
• 17: Jonathan S. Shapiro , Jonathan M. Smith , David J. Farber, EROS: a fast capability system, Proceedings of the seventeenth ACM symposium on Operating systems principles, p.170-185, December 12-15, 1999, Charleston, South Carolina, United States
• 18: T. Wason, S. Cantor, J. Hodges, J. Kemp, and P. Thompson. Liberty ID-FF architecture overview, 2005.

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  K. Computing Milieux
  K.6 MANAGEMENT OF COMPUTING AND INFORMATION SYSTEMS
      K.6.5 Security and Protection (D.4.6, K.4.2)
          Subjects: Authentication

Additional Classification:
  D. Software
  D.4 OPERATING SYSTEMS
      D.4.6 Security and Protection
          Subjects: Authentication

  J. Computer Applications
  J.7 COMPUTERS IN OTHER SYSTEMS

  K. Computing Milieux
  K.6 MANAGEMENT OF COMPUTING AND INFORMATION SYSTEMS
      K.6.5 Security and Protection (D.4.6, K.4.2)
          Subjects: Physical security**

Keywords:
Building Automation Systems, authentication