Abstract

BUELNA, Ernesto  and  MONROY, Raúl. Real-Time Verification of Integrity Policies for Distributed Systems. J. appl. res. technol [online]. 2013, vol.11, n.6, pp.831-843. ISSN 2448-6736.

We introduce a mechanism for the verification of real-time integrity policies about the operation of a distributed system. Our mechanism is based on Microsoft .NET technologies. Unlike rival competitors, it is not intrusive, as it hardly modifies the source code of any component of the system to be monitored. Our mechanism consists of four modules: the specification module, which comes with a security policy specification language, geared towards the capture of integrity policies; the monitoring module, which includes a code injector, whereby the mechanism observes how specific methods of the system, referred to by some policy, are invoked; the verifier module, which examines the operation of the distributed system in order to determine whether is policy compliant or not; and, the reporter module, which notifies the system is policy compliant, or sends an alert upon the occurrence of a contingency, indicating policy violation. We argue that our mechanism can be framed within the Clark and Wilson security model, and, thus, used to realise information integrity. We illustrate the workings and the power of our mechanism on a simple, but industrial-strength, case study.

Keywords : real-time policy verification; integrity policies; distributed systems; .NET code injection; information security.

        · abstract in Spanish     · text in English     · English ( pdf )