1 By Fawaz Alsaadi & Fahad Alsolami CS691 - Summer 2011

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Secure Information Sharing

By Fawaz Alsaadi & Fahad AlsolamiCS691 - Summer 2011

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Content Oriented Virtual Domains for Secure InformationSharing Across Organizations

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INTRODUCTION

Secure information sharing across different organizations is an emerging issue for collaborative software development, product design.

The external threats are taken care of by using firewalls and mail filtering appliances.

For cross organizational security virtual domain is proposed.

Virtual domain is a collection of computer resources distributed across different organization.

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Cross organization project

Organizations A and B are collaborating on a software development project.

A project manager responsible for project management including its information security. Project members create documents for the project and

share these documents using common services How to enforce policy to common services?

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Trusted Virtual Domain based Workspace ModelOne existing solution A TVD is constructed as a cross organization workspace of the project

by virtualizing every resource dedicated to a particular project. Project manager can enforce given policies to all trusted resources in

individual TVD. Good: Allows project members to securely share project specific

information even through the common services Bad: In this model, all common services dedicated to a project need to

be newly constructed apart from existing services. This require additional cost even if the resources are virtual.

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CoVD Based Workspace Model

For reducing such costs, Domain virtualization using Content Oriented

Virtual Domains (CoVD): CoVD is a collection of computer resources

that are connected via common services. Allow leveraging existing common services

from authorized resources. Allows content-based policy enforcement

such as encryption onto mails going through common mail services, and contents filtering for files shared in common file services

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CoVD Based Workspace Model The CoVD comprises project members,

authorized resources, and the project policies. Existing common services can be leveraged

without any modification. CoVD model requires no additional costs for

the common services

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CoVD Based Workspace Model To make secure information sharing

through the existing services, the policy is enforced not to the authorized resources, but to the project documents shared in common services.

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CoVD Based Workspace Model Example of email:

A project member of organization A writes an e-mail attached with a specification document to his or her co-worker of organization B.

CoVD automatically encrypts the email with a project-specific shared key accordingly to the policies given by a project manager.

Because the project key is shared within the authorized resources of the CoVD, the specification documents are accessible by only the project members, even if the e-mail goes through the existing mail servers.

With this content based policy enforcement, the CoVD achieves secure information sharing through the existing common services

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CoVD ARCHITECTURE

Requirements Domain management

a) Member management required for specifying the project members.

b) Resource management is required for constructing and authenticating virtual resources used in the member environment.

c) Policy management is required for specifying and distributing the project information sharing policies to the member environments.

Member environment in the workspaced) Resource virtualization is required for creating the project

specific resources at low cost.e) Member authentication for allowing only the project members to

use the virtual resources.f) Resource authorization for quarantine. g) The information sharing policy must be enforced on the project

documents

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CoVD ARCHITECTURE Overview Domain

management server has Member

management component (A),

Resource management component (B),

Policy management component (C)

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CoVD ARCHITECTURE Overview Domain management

Component (A)▪ The manger registers the

member accounts Component (B)▪ The manger constructs

original images of virtual resources. Then, issues a signature to the virtual resource images and distributes a copy of the images to the virtualization platforms.

Component (C)▪ The manger specifies the

information sharing policies for the project, and distributes them to the enforcers.

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CoVD ARCHITECTURE Overview Member

environment in the workspace. Each physical member

environment uses a ▪ virtualization platform

(D)▪ member authentication

component (E)▪ Resource authorization

component (F), ▪ Policy enforcer (G)

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CoVD ARCHITECTURE Overview Member environment

virtualization platform (D) ▪ Receives a copy of the

virtual resource image and creates the virtual resources for constructing a virtual member environment.

Member authentication component (E)▪ Authenticates the

members with the accounts

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CoVD ARCHITECTURE Overview Member environment

Resource authorization component (F)▪ Checks the signature of

the authorized virtual resources to confirm whether the structure of the resources is as defined by the manager.

Policy enforcer (G)▪ Monitors network

communications▪ Enforces the policy on

the exchanged documents

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IMPLEMENTATION Feasibility of the cross organizational policy

enforcement was evaluated by implementing 2 core components of the CoVD architecture: Policy management component to specify policies, and Policy enforcers to control network data according to the

policies Widely available implementations used for other

components such as: Member management component: Microsoft Active

Directory Resource authentication component: TPM/TCG software

stack Virtualization platforms: Xen, VMWare, and Hyper-V

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Policy management component Allows the project manager to specify

policies & consists of: Policy editor: Allows to specify policies▪ A cgi to provide a web interface

Policy repository to store the specified policies▪ directory to store policies

Policy deployer distributes the policies to the policy enforcers on each client▪ web server that publishes the directory to the

policy enforcer

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Policy enforcer

• Retrieves the policies using an HTTP protocol. Deployed in the management

environment which is separated from the virtual member environment.

Xen is used Policy enforcer in the deployed in Dom0

corresponding to the management environment.

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Policy enforcer

Design an extensible structure that allows the manager to expand the policy expression capability by adding a plug-in module.

In Dom0, policy enforcer comprises of context handler, condition plug-in modules obligation plug-in

modules

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Policy enforcer

Context handler is a Policy interpreter, which Hooks IP packets Calls the condition plug-in

modules and obligation plug-in modules

condition plug-in module▪ Performs filtering according

to the condition Obligation plug-in

modules according ▪ performs required content

transformation to the policies

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Policy enforcer

Context handler Monitors all network communication so that it

enforces policies without fail. Context handler implemented as a bridge driver

that connects DomU and network interface card.

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Policy enforcer

Context handler policy enforcement Finds an appropriate policy by identifying the IP

address and port number of IP packets Context handler interprets the policy and calls

condition plug-in modules and obligation plug-in modules

To call the plug-in modules, the context handler performs a Network Address Translation (NAT)

Each plug-in module has a virtual NIC and opens sockets on its virtual NIC.

Context handler hooks IP packets to/from the DomU and performs the NAT so that the network connection goes thorough plug-in modules

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Policy enforcer

Context handler performs the NAT according to the policy Step 1 (find out the policy)▪ Monitors the IP packets and identifies the

source/destination IP address and the source/destination port number. ▪ Context handler finds the policy according to

the IP addresses and port numbers. ▪ If the IP addresses and the port numbers do

not match any policies, the context handler drops the packet.

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Policy enforcer

Context handler performs the NAT according to the policy Step 2 (call condition functions)▪ Context handler refers to the first condition plug-in

module’s IP address.▪ Context handler changes the destination IP address

into the first module's IP address. ▪ Context handler hooks the packets from the first

module▪ Context handler transfers the packets to the next

module.▪ In the same way, the context handler repeats the NAT

till the last condition module.

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Policy enforcer

Context handler performs the NAT according to the policy Step 3 (call obligation functions)▪ The context handler transfers the packets to

obligation plug-in modules. ▪ If the context handler hooks a packet from

the last obligation module, the context handler changes the destination IP address into the server’s IP address.

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Performance Evaluation

Use case where there is an existing mail server

Project members share project documents using this server.

Used Thunderbird as the mailer and Postfix as the server.

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Secure mail exchange Assumed that project members should

send mail only to other project members to prevent information leakage.

Mail is encrypted to prevent eavesdropping.

Used following policy for secure mail exchange:RecipientCheck

(MailEncryption(*:*,,192.168.0.3:25) )

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Secure mail exchange Project member sends a mail, Recipient check module analyzes the SMTP

protocol and identifies recipients. Checks to see if the recipient is allowed using the

allowable recipient list. If the recipient is allowed, the module mediates the

mail. Otherwise, the module drops the mail and closes the network connection to the server.

Mail encryption module also analyzes the SMTP protocol and identifies the mail body.

It encrypts the mail body using the project key

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Efficiency Evaluation

Efficiency of the context handler and the modules were measured using the time to download a file using a WebDAV client (cadaver version 0.23.0 with neon version 0.27.2)

Used two machines Pentium D 3.4GHz CPU, 3 GB memory with onboard Intel e1000 NIC.

The two were connected via a 100 Mbps hub, One machine was used for a server, and the other was used

for a client. Downloaded files of different sizes (1 MB, 10 MB, 50 MB,

100 MB) and measured the download time in 2 cases Used an unmodified Xen bridge driver in case (a) In (b) case a context handler and a plug-in module with the plug-in

interface was deployed The module was implemented using Perl, and it had a dummy

security function

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Efficiency Evaluation

The download time is proportional to file size

The overhead of case (b) is almost constant regardless of the file size.

In case (a), the regression line is time = 0.1562 * file size,

In case (b), time = 0.2166 * file size

The overhead was calculated using

0.21 66 / 0.1562 = 1.387 (38.7%)

Using system profiler (OProfile) it was identified that the overhead was caused by network communication between the context handler and the plug-in modules

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RELATED WORK

VPN based approach VPN approaches focus on document

sharing within a single organization, while paper’s focus was on cross organizational document sharing.

Virtualization Based Policy Enforcement The main difference in other approaches

such as TVD is that this paper’s approach leverages public service to reduce the cost.

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CONCLUSION

Proposed a method of constructing Content Oriented Virtual Domains, which leverages existing common services and enables a secure collaborative workspace.

CoVD monitors document exchange, checks conditions, and enforces obligations according to project policies.

Implemented the policy management component and the policy enforcer, which can expand policy description capability by adding a plug-in module.

Performance evaluation showed that CoVD allows sharing the project documents safely using existing services such as e-mail.

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Thank You

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Secured Distributed Multi-Agent Role Based Access

Control

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Introduction

Role Based Multi-Agent System for providing effective and secure Bank transaction services

To provide seamless access to information present in the database

Negotiation agent to access and trust negotiations,

Database agent and Interface Agent to accept and display request service results.

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Introduction

Main Features of the system Ease of use, Effective communication between

customers and service providers, Isolation from resource specific details,

changes in the system and internal complexity

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Introduction

Agents developed using Java Agent Development Framework (JADE) Java APIs

System provides features such as The Login Validation or User Authentication Service Registration, Role Agent Identification, and User Interface for an effective interaction between

customer and the system. The role agent retrieves the information from

database and sends it to the customer through an interface agent.

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System Architecture System accepts the

customer request by interface agent.

The facilitator is used to register the service of role agents.

The role agent has the ability to forward the request to negotiator for the validation of request and account details.

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System Architecture The database agent

possesses the capacity to retrieve the customer information.

The interface agent is used to display the customer details.

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System Architecture

User Interface Graphical User Interface

Mobile Agent Creation module Server with appropriate resource is identified

to process the customer request. Facilitator coordinates the mobile agent to

process customer request. Facilitator registers the agent to access a

particular service using its Agent ID. After completion of the customer service the

facilitator deregisters the service.

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System Architecture

Loan Mobile Agent System lists the available bank loan

schemes to the customer Checks the customer’s history If the customer has sufficient balance, the

loan is sanctioned New loan is not entitled unless the

customer pays the previous dues. The customer balance amount gets

updated when permitted to avail the loan.

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System Architecture

Credit Card Agent Provides access rights to the customer Sends the customer information to interface agent. Interface agent coordinates the Credit Card Agent to

register its service with the facilitator. Role of the agent is to process the customer request. The role based agent checks the customer’s earlier

due regarding cash or purchase. If customer do not have due then the customer is

permitted to use the credit card within the permitted limit.

If the customer has dues, credit card payment is barred

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System Architecture

Insurance agent Provides information to all customers about

the insurance offers (i.e. access to polices, brochures and price list).

Describes the characteristics of different types of insurance and their attributes.

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System Architecture

Payment of Insurance bill1 Electronic bill generation2. Payment order3. Electronic notification for sufficient money4. Electronic notification to Insurance agent5. Verification of money transfer

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System Architecture

Decision Agent Makes the decision from the role based

multiagents with the coordination of a data warehouse.

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Multi-Agent Communication

To achieve the individual objectives or dynamically coordinate the actions, software agents need to interact with one another.

Communication is at the basis of agents interactions

Foundation for Intelligent Physical Agent (FIPA)

Interaction Protocols for Agents Conversations

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Foundation for Intelligent Physical Agent (FIPA) Specifies standard components that can

be used Determination of valid sequences of

messages called INteraction Protocols (INP) regulating specific interactions to be known by all the interacting entities

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Foundation for Intelligent Physical Agent (FIPA) Agent Communication Language (ACL) ▪ Enables the attitudes regarding the content of

exchange to be expressed. ▪ e.g. whether the content of the

communication is, an assertion, a request or some form of query ▪ Two most deployed ACL: FIPA-ACL and

Knowledge Query Manipulation Language (KQML).

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Foundation for Intelligent Physical Agent (FIPA) FIPA-SL, Knowledge Interchange Format

(KIF) content Languages (CLs) used for describing the content of the message

At the ontology level, a vocabulary and a set of agreed definitions is used to describe a specific domain in terms of objects, actions and functions

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Interaction Protocols for Agents Conversations Typical patterns of message

exchange Represent the highest

abstraction component in the Agent Communication Stack

Standard fipa-request protocol is used when the Interface agent contacts the Role Based Agent for requesting the information of customer account

Identifies the specific kind of ACL messages which the agents are expected to exchangeas shown in Figure.

The standard FIPA-request interaction protocol

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Experimentation and Results System was implemented with JADE 3.3, Java and

Oracle 10g. Java uses its database driver called JDBC (Java

Database Connectivity) to connect the database. The interface between Oracle and Java is provided by

JDBC-ODBC protocol. Bank application was implemented with Multi-Agent

Role Based Access Control in distributed environment. Processing time consumed was very less with respect

to the number of transactions as compared to client server systems.

User can launch the agent in two ways: GUI agent Wizard, Via command line.

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Results

Account Information Agent Role based multi-agent GUI is created using JADE and Swing. The Account information agent gets the username through the interface agent. Role of agent is registered with facilitator. Now the user details are negotiated based on the behavior of the agent. Based on the agreement the account number and customer account balance

from the account table and branch name from the branch table are joined before displaying the information.

Results show that processing time is much less than for client server system.

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Results

Loan Agent Authentication is checked Lists the available bank loan schemes to the customers. The user can select the options. Before sanctioning the loan to the customer, this checks the customer dues. The customer information is negotiated and if the customer has sufficient balance,

the loan is sanctioned. New loan is not entitled unless the previous dues are paid. The customer balance is updated when permitted to avail the loan.


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Results

Credit Card Agent Credit card agent sends the customer information to interface agent. Interface agent coordinates to register its service with the facilitator. Role based agent checks the customer history. If customer does not have any due the usage of credit card is

permitted to a limit. Results show that processing time is much less than

that for client server system.

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Results

Insurance Agent GUI displays the available Insurance details with

coverage options. Various scenarios are implemented with the purpose

of evaluating the feasibility and the effectiveness of automated agent-based transactions.


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Conclusion and Future Work System architecture for Distributed Role

Based Multi-Agent System was proposed. This system is implemented with Banking

Domain application Accepts the user request, Identifies the role and Agent Facilitator creates the role base mobile

agent, transmission of secured agent data and adopts the customer needs to provide the desired results.

By Fawaz Alsaadi & Fahad Alsolami

Semester Project

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Extension to the Content Oriented Virtual Domains for Secure Information Sharing Across Organizations

CoVD for Secure Information Sharing

The original paper has made following assumptions while doing implementation of CoVD concept: The mail server is assumed to be the

same. The project members are allowed to

send mail only to other project members to prevent information leakage.

Start Extending CoVD

It is proposed to extend the concept of CoVD where the project members are distributed across the various organizations

using different mail servers for sending mails related to the same project instead of using a common mail server.

The project management and project policy is taken care of by a centralized project manager.

CoVD Extension

Requirements Domain management▪ Member management required for specifying the project members

across the organizations. ▪ Resource management is required for constructing and authenticating

virtual resources used in the member environment.▪ Policy management is required for specifying and distributing the

project information sharing policies to the member environments. Member environment in the workspace▪ Resource virtualization is required for creating the project specific

resources at low cost.▪ Member authentication across the organizations for allowing only the

project members to use the virtual resources. All organizations must adhere to this authentication procedure.

▪ Resource authorization for quarantine. ▪ The information sharing policy must be enforced on the project

documents

Extension CoVD Architecture

The extension follows the same architecture as original CoVD implementation as shown in Figure.

Policy management component The policy management is governed only by a

Project manager. The policy document is maintained centrally

located web server. The policy enforcer accesses the document

using HTTP protocol as in case of original CoVD. For each application a plug-in module is

developed and distributed to various member organizations.

The plug-in module is installed and maintained locally by each organization.

Member Management Each organization will appoint a project coordinator for the project. The project manager shall co-ordinate with the project coordinator or creating

the project membership across the organizations. The project coordinator will create a separate user group using directory services

for the specific project for all the members of the project in their organization. The list of members shall be shared with Project manager for necessary

authorization. The project coordinators will take care of installation of requisite framework and

related application plug-in modules for the project member’s use. It is easy to see that a more flexible approach is needed for real project usage

Project Manager

Project Coordinator

s

Project Coordinator

s

Project Coordinator

s

Application management

A plug in module is developed for each application and it resides within the member organization’s network.

All the requests emanating from the project members are scrutinized by the policy enforcer which monitors network communications.

In case the request is related to the project then it enforces the policy on the exchanged documents as per the project policy.

Example of Application

Secure mail exchange Project member sends a mail, Recipient check module available locally analyzes the SMTP protocol

and identifies recipients. Checks to see if the recipient is allowed using the allowable recipient list. If the recipient is allowed, the module mediates the mail. Otherwise, the

module drops the mail and closes the network connection to the server. Mail encryption module also analyzes the SMTP protocol and identifies

the mail body. It encrypts the mail body using the project key and sends the mail to the

mail server of the recipient.

Further Extension of CoVD (TCoVD)

Tiered Content-Oriented Virtual Domains Treat Members as a subclass of resource Add a third parameter to the set of policy

actions▪ (Source Res:SID, Destination Res:SID, Tier)

Introducing Protocols Consist of resources and the actions upon them “Port” replaced with “Sid” (Service ID)

Protocols can be seen as the enforcements of policies at certain strengths (tiers)

Application of TCoVD

Email can now be divided into local and public

Abstracting Resources, especially common, can be

encapsulated (thought of) as a single unit (cloud)

High-Tier (strong) protocol can always be applied to a less secure resource cloud (internet mail)

Sectioning can be performed on parts of a complex resource system

Organization: Tool of Management

Slicing Policies can now be cross-sectioned

(sliced) according to tier levels for uniformity

Quick requisitioning/authorization of new resources – quick opportunities, constant security

Abstract policies allow for “designing with a focus on security” for project planning and management

Lowers cost and Increases Adaptability

Conclusion

The TCoVD extension is a superset of CoVD with the addition of added flexibility in action

Functionality conceptually simplified by seeing Resources interacting with Protocols

Resources can be seen as single units (clouds) composed of various steps or pieces

New usable resources include social networking, P2P, smart phones, and internet email

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References

Content oriented virtual domains for secure information sharing across organizations

http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1866838

Secured Distributed Multi-Agent Role Based Access Control http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1980157





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Thank You

Documents

1 By Fawaz Alsaadi & Fahad Alsolami CS691 - Summer 2011