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CSC 682: Advanced Computer Security
Introduction
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About Me http://www.nku.edu/~waldenj1
James Walden– Assistant Professor of Computer Science– [email protected]– Interests:
• Software Security
• Programming Languages
• Software Engineering
• Network Security
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Course Administration
Web Site– Notes, readings, and assignments on web site.
– http://www.nku.edu/~waldenj1
Assignment submission– Use submit command on kosh.
Contact Information– Email: [email protected]
– Phone: (859) 572-5571
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Topics
1.What is Security?2.Web Security3.Evaluating Research
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What is Security?
Security is the prevention of certain types of intentional actions from occuring in a system.– These potential actions are threats.– Threats that are carried out are attacks.– Intentional attacks are carried out by an attacker.– Objects of attacks are assets.
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Safety vs Security
Adversary: An intelligent attacker who intentionally causes the system to fail.
Security• Home: door lock.• Car: alarm.• Computer: Login
password.
Safety• Home: fire alarm.• Car: crumple zones.• Computer: UPS.
Safety and security can interact: Who is watching your computer room after the fire alarm was pulled?
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Goals of Security
Prevention– Prevent attackers from violating security policy
Detection– Detect attackers’ violation of security policy
Recovery– Stop attack, assess and repair damage
Survivability– Continue to function correctly even if attack succeeds
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NSTISSC Security Model
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Components of Security
Confidentiality– Keeping data and resources hidden. Privacy.
Integrity– Preventing unauthorized changes to data or
resources.
Availability– Enabling access to data and resources
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Confidentiality
AuthenticationPasswords, mother’s maiden name
CorporationsTrade secrets, e.g., the formula for Coca Cola.
DatabasesSSN, Driver’s license
GovernmentsNational security
Embarrassing information: www.thememoryhole.org
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Integrity
Data Integrity– content of the information.– ex: 2005 Walmart $1.5 million bar code scam.
Origin Integrity (authentication)– source of the information.– ex: 1997 Kurt Vonnegut MIT commencement
address email. Vonnegut was not the 1997 speaker and the content wasn’t his.
Prevention vs Detection
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Availability
Prevent loss of system access.
Denial of service attacks common.– Easy to launch, difficult to track down.– Can be just part of another attack
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States of Information
1. StorageInformation not currently being accessed.
2. ProcessingInformation currently being used by processor.
3. TransmissionInformation in transit btw one node and another.
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Security Measures
Technology.– Hardware/software used to ensure
confidentiality, integrity, or availability.
Policy and practice.– Security requirements and activities.
Education, training, and awareness.– Understanding of threats and vulnerabilities and
how to protect against them.
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How to evaluate security solutions?
1. What assets are you trying to protect?
2. What are the risks to those assets?
3. How well does the security solution mitigate those risks?
4. What other risks does the security solution cause?
5. What costs and trade-offs does the security solution impose?
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Aspects of Risks
To evaluate a risk, we need to evaluate both:– Probability of risk occurring.– Cost incurred by risk if it occurs.
Minimize product of probability and cost.
Risks are impacted by environment.– Building a house in a flood plain incurs
additional risks beyond that of house itself.– Similarly, installion and configuration options
impact risk of software systems.
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Security is a matter of Trade-offs
Security is only one of many system goals:• Functionality• Ease of Use• Efficiency• Time to market• Cost• Security
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Cost-Benefit Analysis
Is it cheaper to prevent violation or recover?– Cost of good network security:
• Money, time, reduced functionality, annoyed users.
• Large and ongoing.
– Risks of bad network security:• Angry customers, bad press, network downtime.
• Small and temporary.
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Airport Security
Let’s consider the issue of airport security from the standpoint of what we’ve learned. Develop a solution, keeping the 5 questions in mind:
1. What assets are you trying to protect?
2. What are the risks to those assets?
3. How well does the security solution mitigate those risks?
4. What other risks does the security solution cause?
5. What costs and trade-offs does the security solution impose?
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Human Issues: People Problems
Social engineering– Kevin Mitnick testified before Congress “I was
so successful in that line of attack that I rarely had to resort to a technical attack.”
Circumvention– Users write down passwords, leave screens
unlocked.
Insider attacks
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Human Issues: Organizations
Low priority– Security costs, but doesn’t produce income.– Lack of liability reduces costs of bad security.
Variable impact– Cost of security violation highly variable.– Insurance converts variable risk to fixed cost, but
risk too variable for much involvement so far.
Power and responsibility– Personnel responsible for security often don’t
have power to enforce security.
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Security: Laws and Customs
Are desired security measures illegal?– cryptography export before 2000– is it legal to monitor security breakins?– international commerce
Will users circumvent them?– writing down passwords– removing file ACLs
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Security Liability
Product liability:– Tires: Continental recalled Ford SUV tires in
2002 due to wire and vibration problems.– Software: Manufacturer not liable for security
flaws.
Since Microsoft isn’t liable for Windows security failures, why would they want to sacrifice money, time, functionality, and ease of use for security?
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Assumptions
• Security rests on assumptions specific to type of security required and environment.
• Example: – TCP/IP designed for pre-commercial Internet.
• Assumed only legitimate admins had root access.
• Trusted IP addresses, since only root can set IP addr.
• What happens to network when Windows 95 systems added to network, where desktop user has all privileges?
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Assurance
How much can you trust a system?
Example:– Purchasing aspirin from a drugstore.– Bases for trust:
• Certification of drug by FDA.
• Reputation of manufacturer.
• Safety seal on bottle.
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How much do you trust?
Ken Thompson’s compiler hack from “Reflections on Trusting Trust.”– Modified C compiler does two things:
• If compiling a compiler, inserts the self-replicating code into the executable of the new compiler.
• If compiling login, inserts code to allow a backdoor password.
– After recompiling and installing old C compiler:• Source code for Trojan horse does not appear
anywhere in login or C compiler.• Only method of finding Trojan is analyzing binary.
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What is web application security?
The art and science of developing web applications that function correctly even when under attack.
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Reasons for Attacking Web Apps
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A Growing Problem
1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006
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Software Vulnerabilities
Year
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Firewalls don’t protect web apps
Firewall
Port 80HTTP Traffic
WebClient
WebServer
Application
Application
DatabaseServer
telnet
ftp
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HTTP: HyperText Transfer Protocol
Simple request/response protocol– Request methods: GET, POST, HEAD, etc.– Stateless: req#2 doesn’t know about req#1
HTTPS– HTTP wrapped in SSL/TLS encryption– Protects data in transit to web server.– Doesn’t protect stored data.– Doesn’t protect server from being hacked.
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HTTP Request
GET http://www.google.com/ HTTP/1.1Host: www.google.comUser-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 5.1) Gecko/20060909 Firefox/1.5.0.7
Accept: text/html, image/png, */*Accept-Language: en-us,en;q=0.5Cookie: rememberme=true; PREF=ID=21039ab4bbc49153:FF=4
Method URL Protocol Version
Headers
Blank Line
No Data for GET
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HTTP Response
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Cache-Control: private
Content-Type: text/html
Server: GWS/2.1
Date: Fri, 13 Oct 2006 03:16:30 GMT
<HTML> ... (page data) ... </HTML>
Protocol Version HTTP Response Code
Headers
BlankLine
Web Page Data
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HTTP GET Parameters
http://ex.com/path/app.cgi?param1=val1¶m2=val2
Formatparameter_name=valueMultiple parameters separated by &
URI encodingEncode chars as ISO-Latin hex val: %XYSpecial characters must be encoded.Any character may be encoded.
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HTTP POST Parameters
POST /path/app.cgi HTTP/1.0
Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded Content-Length: 32
param1=value1¶m2=value2
Formatparameter_name=valueMultiple parameters separated by &
URI encoding
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Cookies
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-Type: text/htmlSet-Cookie: Name=Value; path=/; expires=01-Jan-2038 23:59:59UCT
Cookie FormatOnly sent to URLs that match path,
domain.Sent only via SSL if secure specified.Expires on date or when browser closed.
GET /path/app.cgi HTTP/1.1Host: ex.comCookie: Name=Value
CSC 682: Advanced Computer Security
Web Application Vulnerabilities
Input-based Security Problems– Injection Flaws– Insecure Remote File Inclusion– Unvalidated Input
Authentication and Authorization– Authentication– Access Control– Cross-Site Scripting
Other Bugs– Error Handling and Information Leakage– Insecure Storage– Insecure Communications
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Vulnerability Trends for 2006
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Key Points
• Components of security– Confidentiality, Integrity, Availability
• States of information– Storage, Processing, Transmission
• Security is a matter of trade-offs.• Web Input
– HTTP stateless request/response protocol.
– Cookies are HTTP headers used to provide state.
– SSL protects data in transit, but not in storage.
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References1. Ross Anderson, Security Engineering, Wiley,
2001.2. Matt Bishop, Introduction to Computer Security,
Addison-Wesley, 2005.3. Peter Neumann, (moderator), Risks Digest,
http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/4. Bruce Schneier, Beyond Fear, Copernicus Books,
2003.5. Ken Thompson, “Reflections on Trusting Trust”,
Communication of the ACM, Vol. 27, No. 8, August 1984, pp. 761-763 (http://www.acm.org/classics/sep95/)