Enhancing the OS against Security Threats in System Administration - Inria - Institut national de recherche en sciences et technologies du numérique Accéder directement au contenu
Communication Dans Un Congrès Année : 2012

Enhancing the OS against Security Threats in System Administration

Résumé

The consequences of security breaches due to system administrator errors can be catastrophic. Software systems in general, and OSes in particular, ultimately depend on a fully trusted administrator whom is granted superuser privileges that allow him to fully control the system. Consequently, an administrator acting negligently or unethically can easily compromise user data in irreversible ways by leaking, modifying, or deleting data. In this paper we propose a new set of guiding principles for OS design that we call the broker security model. Our model aims to increase OS security without hindering manageability. This is achieved by a two-step process that (1) restricts administrator privileges to preclude inspection and modification of user data, and (2) allows for management tasks that are mediated by a layer of trusted programs—brokers—interposed between the management interface and system objects. We demonstrate the viability of this approach by building BrokULOS, a Linux-based OS that suppresses superuser privileges and exposes a narrow management interface consisting of a set of tailor-made brokers. Our evaluation shows that our modifications to Linux add negligible overhead to applications while preserving system manageability.
Fichier principal
Vignette du fichier
978-3-642-35170-9_21_Chapter.pdf (314.54 Ko) Télécharger le fichier
Origine : Fichiers produits par l'(les) auteur(s)
Loading...

Dates et versions

hal-01555541 , version 1 (04-07-2017)

Licence

Paternité

Identifiants

Citer

Nuno Santos, Rodrigo Rodrigues, Bryan Ford. Enhancing the OS against Security Threats in System Administration. 13th International Middleware Conference (MIDDLEWARE), Dec 2012, Montreal, QC, Canada. pp.415-435, ⟨10.1007/978-3-642-35170-9_21⟩. ⟨hal-01555541⟩
27 Consultations
120 Téléchargements

Altmetric

Partager

Gmail Facebook X LinkedIn More