Title: CS-4513 Distributed Computing Systems
1Security and Authentication
- CS-4513Distributed Computing Systems
- (Slides include materials from Operating System
Concepts, 7th ed., by Silbershatz, Galvin,
Gagne, Distributed Systems Principles
Paradigms, 2nd ed. By Tanenbaum and Van Steen,
and Modern Operating Systems, 2nd ed., by
Tanenbaum)
2Reading Material
- Tanenbaum, Modern Operating Systems, Chapter 9
- Security and threats
- Viruses
- How to write and detect!
- Protection implementation of security
- Silbershatz, Chapters 14-15
- Protection
- Security
- Tanenbaum Van Steen
- Chapter 9
3Puzzle
- Alice wishes to send secret message to Bob
- She places message in impenetrable box
- Locks the box with unbreakable padlock
- Sends locked box to Bob
- Problem Bob has no key to unlock box
- No feasible way to securely send key to Bob
- How does Bob retrieve message?
4Answer
- Bob adds 2nd unbreakable padlock to box
- Locks with own key
- Sends box back to Alice (with two padlocks!)
- Alice unlocks and removes her lock
- Sends box back to Bob
- Bob unlocks his lock
- Opens box and reads message
- What could go wrong?
5Answer
- Bob adds 2nd unbreakable padlock to box
- Locks with own key
- Sends box back to Alice (with two padlocks!)
- Alice unlocks and removes her lock
- Sends box back to Bob
- Bob unlocks his lock
- Opens box and reads message
- What could go wrong?
6Authentication
- How does a system (distributed or not) know who
it is talking to? - Who do I say that I am?
- How can I verify that?
- Something I know (that nobody else should know)
- Something I have (that nobody else should have)
- Something I am (that nobody else should be)
7Threats against Authentication
- I want to pretend to be you
- I can steal your password
- the sticky note on your monitor or the list in
your desk drawer - by monitoring your communications or looking over
your shoulder - I can guess your password
- particularly useful if I can also guess your user
name - I can get between you and the system you are
talking to
8Getting between you and system you are talking to
9Login Spoof
- I create a login screen in my process
- On a public machine
- Looks exactly like real one
- You log into system
- My login process records your user ID and
password - Logs you in normally
- Result I have gotten between you and system
without your knowledge - Also, I have stolen your user ID and password
10The Trouble with Passwords
- They are given away
- They are too easy to guess
- They are used too often
- There are too many of them
- They are used in too many places
11Some ways around the problem
- Better passwords
- longer
- larger character set
- more random in nature/encrypted
- Used less often
- changed frequently, one system per password
- challenge/response use only once
12The Challenge/Response Protocol
Mary
Art
Hello, Im Art
Decrypt This RP
R
Hello Art! How can I help you?
13The Challenge/Response Protocol
Mary
Art
Hello, Im Art
Decrypt This RP
R
Hello Art! How can I help you?
14Threat Steal passwords from the system
- Dont keep them in an obvious place
- Encrypt them so that version seen by system is
not same as what user enters - or version on the wire
- or version used last time
15Too many passwords to remember?
- Third-party authentication
- Get someone to vouch for you
- The basics This guy says you know him.. Yes,
I trust him, so you should too.. - Kerberos Certificate-based authentication
within a trust community
16What is in a certificate?
- Who issued it
- When was it issued
- For what purpose was it issued
- For what time frame is it valid
- (possibly other application-specific data)
- A signature that proves it has not been forged
17Systems and Networks Are Not Different
- Same basic rules about code behavior apply
- Same authentication rules apply
- The same security principles apply
- Same Coding Rules Apply To
- An application
- Code which manages incoming messages
- Code which imposes access controls on a network
- ...
18The Principles
- Understand what you are trying to protect
- Understand the threat(s) you are trying to
protect against - Also, costs and risks
- Be prepared to establish trust by telling people
how you do it - Assume that the bad guys are at least as clever
as you are!
19Security must occur at four levels to be effective
- Physical
- The best security system is no better than the
lock on your front door (or desk, or file
cabinet, etc.)! - Human
- Phishing, dumpster diving, social engineering
- Operating System
- Protection and authentication subsystems
- Prevention of unauthenticated access to data
- Network
- Protection and authentication subsystems
- Separate from underlying protocols
- Security is as weak as the weakest link in chain
20How do these attacks work?
- Messages that attack mail readers or browsers
- Denial of service attacks against a web server
- Password crackers
- Viruses, Trojan Horses, other malware
21The concept of a Vulnerability
- Buffer overflow
- Protocol/bandwidth interactions
- Protocol elements which do no work
- execute this messages
- The special case of mobile agents
- Human user vulnerabilities
- eMail worms
- Phishing
22Another Principle
- There is a never-ending war going on between the
black hats and the rest of us. - For every asset, there is at least one
vulnerability - For every protective measure we add, they will
find another vulnerability
23Yet Another Principle
- There is no such thing as a bullet-proof barrier
- Every level of the system and network deserves an
independent threat evaluation and appropriate
protection - Only a multi-layered approach has a chance of
success!
24Actual Losses
- Approximately 70 are due to human error
- More than half of the remainder are caused by
insiders - Social Engineering accounts for more loss than
technical attacks.
25What is Social Engineering?
- Hello. This is Dr. Burnett of the cardiology
department at the Conquest Hospital in Hastings.
Your patient, Sam Simons, has just been admitted
here unconscious. He has an unusual ventricular
arrhythmia. Can you tell me if there is anything
relevant in his record?
26Social Engineering (2)
From 3dksobinsky_at_zoom-internet.net Sent Sunday,
December 3, 2006 810 AM To rmstronger_at_charter.ne
t Subject Re Approved Please read the attached
file.
27Program Threats in Operating Systems
- Trojan Horse
- Code segment that misuses its environment
- Exploits mechanisms for allowing programs written
by users to be executed by other users - Spyware, pop-up browser windows, covert channels
- Logic Bomb
- Program that initiates a security incident under
certain circumstances - Trap Door
- Specific user identifier or password that
circumvents normal security procedures - Could be included in a compiler
- Stack and Buffer Overflow
- Exploits a bug in a program (overflow either the
stack or memory buffers)
28Program Threats Viruses
- Code fragment embedded in legitimate programs
- Very specific to CPU architecture, operating
system, applications - Usually borne via email or as a macro
- E.g., Visual Basic Macro to reformat hard drive
- Sub AutoOpen()
- Dim oFS
- Set oFS CreateObject(Scripting.FileSystemObje
ct) - vs Shell(ccommand.com /k format
c,vbHide) - End Sub
29Program Threats (Cont.)
- Virus dropper inserts virus onto the system
- Many categories of viruses, literally many
thousands of viruses - File
- Boot
- Macro
- Polymorphic
- Source code
- Encrypted
- Stealth
- Tunneling
- Multipartite
- Armored
30Questions?
31What is a Security Policy?
- What rights MAY a user have?
- Define the maximum!
- What rights can a user pass on?
- How can a user acquire additional rights?
- Linux/Unix -rwxr-xr-- /foo -rw--w----
/bar
32Policy Models (1)
- A Policy Model is a framework for creating a
specific policy for a specific organization - Linux/Unix
- Users, groups, everybody
- owner (or ) controls grant of rights
- Rights based on UID, GID Focus on files
- Process has rights of parent
- can change GID or drop rights
33Policy Models (2)
- Win200X
- Users and groups
- Groups may be members of groups
- Rights are the combined rights of all groups of
which the user is a direct or indirect member - Administrator controls everything
- can grant any right
- The default is strong control over admin
functions and little control over files
34Policy Models (3)
- Typical Business
- Managers can (usually) grant rights to their
staff - Information is visible to people above in the
organization - Managers do not have authority to grant access
downward for some classes of information - Overall control is maintained by restricting
access to applications rather than to data - Databases have their own distinct access controls
35Policy Models (4)
- The Military Mind
- Access rights are granted only by a higher
authority - Access is broken into two models
- need-to-know (usually organizational with upward
visibility) - item-by-item (classification may occur in advance
of creation or after) - Creator may be denied access to own work
- Some weird anomalies
36Policy Models (5)
- The BMA (British Medical Assoc.) model (1995)
- Each medical record has an access control list
- Access may be granted to a new clinician by the
subject or the primary clinician - Patient must be notified of all ACL changes, and
may revoke access - Deletions are not allowed
- All access must be logged and auditable
- Information may be aggregated from A into B only
if ACL(A) is a superset of ACL(B) - Reference
- Anderson, Ross, An Update on the BMA Security
Policy, 1996. (.pdf)
37Policy Models (6)
- The HIPAA model (1998)
- The patient controls the right to access
personally identifiable health information - Access is granted to any clinician or facility
staff participating in the care of the patient - Patient must be notified of all breaches
- Deletions are not allowed
- All access must be logged and auditable
- Privileges may be revoked
38More Principles
- Think about Assets, Threats and Vulnerabilities
FIRST - Find an appropriate (and minimally complex)
Policy Model - Match your OS capabilities to the policy model as
best you can - Train staff to recognize social engineering!
- Train staff to make a habit out of the policy!
39Fun with Cryptography
- What is cryptography about?
- General Principles of Cryptography
- Basic Protocols
- Single-key cryptography
- Public-key cryptography
- An example...
40Cryptography as a Security Tool
- Broadest security tool available
- Source and destination of messages cannot be
trusted without cryptography - Means to constrain potential senders (sources)
and / or receivers (destinations) of messages - Based on secrets (keys)
41Principles
- Cryptography is about the exchange of messages
- The key to success is that all parties to an
exchange trust that the system will both protect
them from threats and accurately convey their
message - TRUST is essential
42Therefore
- Algorithms must be public and verifiable
- We need to be able to estimate the risk of
compromise - The solution must practical for its users, and
impractical for an attacker to break
43Guidelines
- Cryptography is always based on algorithms which
are orders of magnitude easier to compute in the
forward (normal) direction than in the reverse
(attack) direction. - The attackers problem is never harder than
trying all possible keys - The more material the attacker has the easier his
task
44Example
- What is 314159265358979 ? 314159265358979?
- vs.
- What are prime factors of391257150641938709059482
8508241?
45Time marches on
- We must assume that there will always be
improvements in computational power, mathematics
and algorithms. - Messages which hang around get less secure with
time! - Increases in computing power help the good guys
and hurt the bad guys for new and short-lived
messages
46Caveat
- We cannot mathematically PROVE that the inverse
operations are really as hard as they seem to
beIt is all relative - The Fundamental Tenet of Cryptography
- If lots of smart people have failed to solve a
problem, it wont be solved (soon) -
47Secret key cryptography
K
K
f (T,K)
g (C,K)
C
T
T
Cleartext
Cleartext
Cyphertext
48Secret Key Methods
- DES (56 bit key)
- IDEA (128 bit key)
- http//www.mediacrypt.com/community/index.asp
- Triple DES (three 56 bit keys)
- AES
- From NIST, 2000
- choice of key sizes up to 256 bits and more
- Commercial implementations available
49Diffie Hellman
Alice
Agree on p,g
Bob
choose random A
choose random B
TA gA mod p
TB gB mod p
compute (TB)A
compute (TA)B
Shared secret key is gAB mod p
50DH Problems
- Not in itself an encryption method we must
still do a secret key encryption - Subject to a man in the middle attack
- (Alice thinks she is talking to Bob, but actually
Trudy is intercepting all of the messages and
substitution her own)
51RSA Public key cryptography
Key 1
Key 2
f ()
f ()
C
T
T
Cleartext
Cleartext
Cyphertext
Key 1 can be either a Public Key or a Private
Key. Key 2 is then the corresponding Private Key
or Public Key.
52RSA Public Key Cryptography
- Rivest, Shamir and Adelman (1978)
- I can send messages that only you can read
- I can verify that you and only you could have
sent a message - I can use a trusted authority to distribute my
public key - The trusted authority is for your benefit!
53RSA Details
- We will use the same operation to encrypt and
decrypt - To encrypt, we will use e as a key, to decrypt
we will use d as a key - e and d are inverses with respect to the chosen
algorithm
54RSA Details
- Choose n as the product of two large primes
- Finding the factors of a large number is
mathematically hard (difficult) - Finding primes is also hard
- Choose e to be a (fairly small) prime and compute
d from e and the factors of n - THROW AWAY THE FACTORS OF n!
- Publish two numbers, e (public key) and n
55RSA Details
- Encryption Cyphertext (Cleartext)e mod n
- Decryption Cleartext (Cyphertext)d mod n
- Typical d will be on the order of 500 to 700 bits
- The cost of the algorithm is between 1? and 2 ?
the size of n, - Each operation is a giant shift and add (multiply
by a power of 2)
56RSA Problems
- It is much more costly than typical secret-key
methods ? - Use RSA to hide (i.e., encrypt) a secret key,
- Encrypt the message with the secret key and
append/prefix the encrypted key - Requires a Public Key Infrastructure for
effective key generation and distribution - Chain of trust thing again!
57Message Digests (aka Digital Signatures)
- A message digest is a non-reversable algorithm
which reduces a message to a fixed-length
summary - The summary has the property that a change to the
original will produce a new summary - The probability that the new summary is the same
as the old should be 1/(size of digest) - Silbershatz, p. 582 (15.4.1.3)
- Tanenbaum, p. 590 (9.2.4)
58Message Digests (2)
- There are several good (but possibly no perfect)
message digest algorithms - MD5 is probably the most common one in use 128
bit digest - has known weaknesses
- SHA-1 160 bit digest (current best choice)
- Another product of NIST
59Conclusion
- Protection in OS and distributed system is
- Difficult
- Important
- Security is needed for
- Authentication of users
- Validation of communication
60Resources
- Network World Security Newsletter
- http//www.nwsubscribe.com
- Practical advice, not a virus alert newsletter.
Especially good for the links to other security
resources at the bottom of each article - CERT Coordination Center at CMU
- http//www.cert.org
- News about system threats, including viruses and
other problems. Source for OCTAVE papers and
process - Norton AntiVirus Site (Symantec)
- http//securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/
- McAfee Security (Network Associates)
- http//us.mcafee.com/virusinfo/
61Textbooks
- Network Security C. Kaufman, R. Perlman, M.
Speciner, Prentice Hall (2002) - A practical but rigorous presentation of network
security issues and techniques with emphasis on
cryptographic solutions - Security Engineering R. Anderson, Wiley (2001)
- Focused on learning from past mistakes in
security system design. - Excellent discussion of policies and policy
models. - See authors web site (www.ross-anderson.com) if
you are interested in current research.
62Other Books
- Real World Linux Security R. Toxen, Prentice
Hall (2003) - An excellent read. Lists hundreds of
vulnerabilities and what to do about them.
Valuable for non Linux users too. - Windows 2003 Security Bible B. Rampling, Wiley
(2003) - Good example of a how-to book. Specific to
WIN2003 - The Art of Deception K. Mitnick, Wiley (2002)
- Mitnick is one of the most famous social
engineers. - Must-read for those involved in broad security
planning, and fun for everyone.