a pipeline development toolkit in support of secure information flow goals
The rapid spread of viruses, worms and undesired software in commercial and private networks has been a driving factor behind computer security research. The subject of preventing rogue software and rogue network traffic has been the focus of a number of research areas, most significantly through monitoring with intrusion detection systems (IDS). These reactive systems speak to our inability as software designers to specify the information flows inherent in our systems. This lack of specification results in computer defenders deploying monitoring technologies to detect and react to known illicit software behavior and network traffic using blacklisting techniques. An opposing approach known as whitelisting is known to be more secure. Network managers are unable however to enumerate all permissible information flows in their systems in order to establish a complete whitelist. In this work we describe a novel software engineering approach to the design, implementation and management of assured software pipeline systems [2] with the specific goal of specifying and confining information flows. We aim to make information flow goals a first class component of system design, addressing and preserving them throughout development. Further we consider the expansion of our work into policy analysis techniques using established model checking and graph analysis techniques.
type enforcement information flow security information flow specification media pipeline security selinux