Self-Securing Devices: Better Security via Smarter Devices Greg Ganger Director, Parallel Data Lab

Greg Ganger November 2001http:// Motivation: Intrusion Survival Intrusions are a fact of modern computing worms, virus-infected software, crackers, … Never going to have rock-solid kernels or firewalls Dilemma: all hope placed in perimeter defense Difficult to defend fully Difficult to recover from breaches Difficulties scale with amount of stuff protected Better approach: many independent perimeters

Greg Ganger November 2001http:// Some components of a computer system Kernel Programs Main Memory NIC Network SIC Disks Graphics Card Video Capture

Greg Ganger November 2001http:// Today’s security perimeter Kernel Programs Main Memory NIC Network SIC Disks Graphics Card Video Capture

Greg Ganger November 2001http:// What makes the current model so bad? Large, singular borders must support many needs code too complex to get perfect system too complex to administer perfectly Successful intruder controls all resources no observations or state remain trustable no foothold for detection, diagnosis, or recovery Central security checks don’t scale result: trade-off between security and performance

Greg Ganger November 2001http:// Today’s security perimeter Kernel Programs Main Memory NIC Network SIC Disks Graphics Card Video Capture

Greg Ganger November 2001http:// Lots of distinct “computers” in this system SCSI cards Video cards Network cards … and disks too

Greg Ganger November 2001http:// More good places for security perimeters Kernel Programs Main Memory NIC Network SIC Disks Graphics Card Video Capture

Greg Ganger November 2001http:// What makes self-securing devices better? Many additional perimeters each is easier to harden (small, specialized) each is very different from others (heterogeneous) Successful intruder controls fewer resources many observations in system remain trustable many footholds for detection, diagnosis, or recovery Decentralized security checks do scale can be more aggressive in what checked when

Greg Ganger November 2001http:// Example: self-securing storage devices Protect stored data and audit storage accesses even if OS is compromised Can save and observe anything inside device retain all versions of all data collect audit log of all requests What self-securing storage enables storage-based intrusion detection faster, better recovery informed analysis of security compromises

Greg Ganger November 2001http:// Example: self-securing NICs Protect each side from the other especially when “the other” is not acting nice… Can observe, filter, modify communications Incoming: firewall, proxy, NAT, etc… Outgoing: throttle misbehaving system, tag traffic, … What self-securing NICs enable distributed, coordinated traffic analysis including insiders and more detailed checks rapid deployment of new policies dynamic response to attacks, worms, and partial compromises

Greg Ganger November 2001http:// Summary: device-embedded security Self-securing devices are an opportunity creates more and independent perimeters separate hardware+software gives strong base PDL is developing this new paradigm exploring what can be done behind each perimeter … and the associated hardware requirements developing tools for coordinating dynamic action automating detection, containment, diagnosis, recovery developing tools for administering devices

For more information: Director, Parallel Data Lab