3. Discretionary and Mandatory Access Control.ppt

* A single level is not good enough. Someone having top secret, say, in the army, will be able to read all * * Examples of Covert Channels Using file lock as a shared boolean variable By varying its ratio of computing to input/output or its paging rate, the service can transmit information to a concurrently running process Timing of packets being sent Covert channels are often noisy However, information theory and coding theory can be used to encode and decode information through noisy channels More on Covert Channels Covert channels cannot be blocked by *-property It is generally very difficult, if not impossible, to block all covert channels One can try to limit the bandwidth of covert channels Military requires cryptographic components be implemented in hardware to avoid trojan horse leaking keys through covert channels More on MLS: Security Levels Used as attributes of both subjects objects clearance classification Typical military security levels: top secret ?? secret ? confidential ? unclassified Typical commercial security levels restricted ? proprietary ? sensitive ? public Security Categories Also known as compartments Typical military security categories army, navy, air force nato, nasa, noforn Typical commercial security categories Sales, RD, HR Dept A, Dept B, Dept C Security Labels Labels = Levels ? P (Categories) Define an ordering relationship among Labels (e1, C1) ? (e2, C2) iff. e1 ?e2 and C1 ? C2 This ordering relation is a partial order reflexive, transitive, anti-symmetric e.g., ? All security labels form a lattice An Example Security Lattice levels={top secret, secret} categories={army,navy} Top Secret, {army, navy} Top Secret, {army} Top Secret, {navy} Secret, {army, navy} Top Secret, {} Secret, {army} Secret, {navy} Secret, {} * * * Owners have discretion to further share. * Example: a secretary works for two faculty members with last name Li, an charges one’s bill to another’s account. In ACL, both faculty members authorize the se