DARPA MobiVisor: An Architecture for High Assurance for Untrusted Applications on Wireless Handheld Devices via Lightweight Virtualization

Abstract

This report summarizes the research and activities of the project entitled "An Architecture for High Assurance for Untrusted Applications on Wireless Handheld Devices via Lightweight Virtualization" or simply DARPA MobiVisor. In this work, GMU introduces a containment based security enforcement mechanism designed to contain applications inside virtual containers, separating the running instance of a program from the rest of the system while providing a complete execution environment that supports monitoring, profiling, and controlling applications. A two-fold approach is taken towards these goals: isolation through virtualization and resource management. Isolation addresses the containment of processes at process control and file system levels, whereas resource management handles accounting, profiling, and provisioning of system resources (including CPU, memory, network, battery, and storage, etc). With these mechanisms in place, it is believed that a wide range of security policies can be effectively enforced to provide a secure and lightweight execution environment for applications for "smart" handheld devices.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Nov 01, 2010
Accession Number
ADA548297

Entities

People

  • Angelos Stavrou
  • Anup K. Ghosh

Organizations

  • George Mason University

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Cyber
  • Materials and Manufacturing Processes

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Air Force
  • Air Force Research Laboratories
  • Application Software
  • Computer Programming
  • Computer Programs
  • Computers
  • Computing Devices
  • Malware
  • Mobile Computing
  • Mobile Devices
  • Mobile Operating Systems
  • Mobile Phones
  • Operating Systems
  • Resource Management
  • Smartphones
  • Wireless Communications

Fields of Study

  • Computer science

Readers

  • Distributed Systems and Data Platform Development
  • Parallel and Distributed Computing.