On Orderings in Security Models
Abstract
Security decisions are often made on the basis of a comparison of two or more alternatives. Is it better go with design A or design B? Which security policy is best for my needs? What combination of defensive mitigations provide the best protection from attack? Implicit in such comparisons are ordering relations < or = to among the alternatives. Such ordering relations crop up in numerous security formalisms. This paper studies preorders that arise in three formalisms for very different domains of security: attack trees, Copland specifications of layered attestations, and cryptographic protocols. While these three areas of study appear to be very different in subject matter and form, we identify a common framework for characterizing and defining preorders that arise in them. This new perspective unlocks novel connections that should allow insights in one domain to bear fruit in the others as well.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jul 21, 2021
- Accession Number
- AD1156879
Entities
People
- Paul D. Rowe
Organizations
- MITRE Corporation