Patent ID: 8402267
Filing Date: 2013-03-19
Classification: G06F

Abstract:
1. A method of operation of a microkernel executing on a processing device, the method comprising: partitioning, by the microkernel, a network device into a communication address space, a security enforcement address space, and a protected operations address space; providing secure isolation of the protected operations address space from the communication address space, by security threads of the security enforcement address space; and allocating, by the microkernel, a limited amount of processor execution time to the communication address space, the protected operations address space, and the security enforcement address space such that no thread of any of the communication address space, the protected operations address space, and the security enforcement address space can obtain unlimited processor execution time; mediating communication between the communications threads, the protected operations threads, and the security threads; receiving an identity of a sender of an inter-process communication; and providing the identity of the sender to a receiver of the inter-process communication, such that the identity of the sender cannot be forged; wherein the protected operations are field device control and data acquisition operations in a supervisory control and data acquisition system; the method further including: wherein the step of authenticating the request from the SCADA protocol threads further includes: