Integrity Through Mediated Interfaces Bob Balzer Information Sciences Institute

Technical Objectives Wrap Data with Integrity Marks –Insure its Integrity –Record its processing history –Reconstruct it from this history if it is corrupted by program bugs by malicious attacks Demo these capabilities on major COTS product –Microsoft Office Suite

This Slide Intentionally Blank Existing Practice Integrity Stove-Piped on Tool-by-Tool Basis End-to-End Integrity Not Supported Persistent Data only Safeguarded by OS Corruption Detection is Ad-Hoc Corruption Repair –Based on Backups –Not Integrated with Detection

Wrap Program –Detect access of integrity marked data & decode it M M M M MediationCocoon Environment = Operating System External Programs Program Change Monitor –Monitor User Interface to detect change actions Translate GUI actions into application specific modifications Technical Approach –Detect update of integrity marked data Re-encode & re-integrity mark the updated data Repair any subsequent Corruption from History Build on existing research infrastructure

Program M M M MediationCocoon M Security Manager Mediation Installer Secure Mediation NT Security & Integration Enhancements Safe Execution Environments Safe Web Browsing Safe Agent Execution Safe Download/Macro Execution File System Extensions Encryption Archive Virtual File System Copy-On-Modify Ppt Design Editor EMACS in Eudora Web Annotator Balzer USC INFORMATION SCIENCES INSTITUTE Diagram Animation Monitoring C++ Development Web Ad Buster COTS Integration

Copy On Modify Demo

Safe Web Browser Demo

Domain Specific Design Editor Demo

Major Risks and Planned Mitigation Ability to detect application-level modifications Application Openness Spectrum: –Event-Generators:Capture as transaction history –Scripting API:Examine state to infer action –Black-Box:Mediate GUI to infer action => Generic Mediators + Tool Specific mapping Ability to protect transaction history => Hide the location of the transaction history Virtual File System wrapper System-level Randomization Techniques Tool-Specific Modification Trackers Expensive => Automate common portions => Provide rule-based scripting language

Task Schedule Dec99:Tool-Level Integrity Manager –Monitor & Authorize Tool access & updates Jun00:Operation-Level Integrity Manager –Monitor, Authorize, & Record Modifications Dec00:Integrity Management for MS-Office Jun01:Corruption Repair Jun02:Automated Modification Tracking

Expected Major Achievements for Integrity Marked Documents: –End-To-End Data Integrity (through multiple tools/sessions) –Modifications Monitored, Authorized, & Recorded Authorization Control of Users, Tools, and Operations All Changes Attributed and Time Stamped –Assured Detection of Corruption –Ability to Restore Corrupted Data Ability to operate with COTS products MS-Office Documents Integrity Marked

Measures of Success Widespread Deployment of Integrity Manager for MS-Office Extensibility of Integrity Manager to other COTS products Ease of creating Modification Trackers Resistence to Malicious Attacks –Corruption Avoidance –Corruption Detection –Corruption Repair => Red-Team Experiment

Key Outstanding Issues None Yet

Transition of Technology Piggyback our Technology on a widely used Target Product (MS Office) –Integrity Manager automatically invoked as needed Make technology available for COTS products Work with Vendors to encourage publication of modification events

Needed PM Assitance None Yet