Uses of E-mail

•Anonymity allowed

–Exception: if it violates laws or other policies

•Can’t interfere with others’ use of e-mail

–No spam, letter bombs, e-mailed worms, etc.

•Personal e-mail allowed within limits

–Cannot interfere with university business

–Such e-mail may be a “university record” subject to disclosure

Security of E-mail

•University can read e-mail

–Won’t go out of its way to do so

–Allowed for legitimate business purposes

–Allowed to keep e-mail robust, reliable

•Archiving and retention allowed

–May be able to recover e-mail from end system (backed up, for example)

Implementation

•Adds campus-specific requirements and procedures

–Example: “incidental personal use” not allowed if it benefits a non-university organization

–Allows implementation to take into account differences between campuses, such as self-governance by Academic Senate

•Procedures for inspecting, monitoring, disclosing e-mail contents

Backups

Mechanisms

•Entity or procedure that enforces some part of the security policy

–Access controls (like bits to prevent someone from reading a homework file)

–Disallowing people from bringing CDs and floppy disks into a computer facility to control what is placed on systems

Example English Policy

•Computer security policy for academic institution

–Institution has multiple campuses, administered from central office

–Each campus has its own administration, and unique aspects and needs

•Authorized Use Policy

•Electronic Mail Policy

Authorized Use Policy

•Intended for one campus (Davis) only

•Goals of campus computing

–Underlying intent

•Procedural enforcement mechanisms

–Warnings

–Denial of computer access

–Disciplinary action up to and including expulsion

•Written informally, aimed at user community

Electronic Mail Policy

•Systemwide, not just one campus

•Three parts

–Summary

–Full policy

–Interpretation at the campus

Trust

Administrator installs patch

1.Trusts patch came from vendor, not tampered with in transit

2.Trusts vendor tested patch thoroughly

3.Trusts vendor’s test environment corresponds to local environment

4.Trusts patch is installed correctly

Trust in Formal Verification

•Gives formal mathematical proof that given input i, program P produces output o as specified

•Suppose a security-related program S formally verified to work with operating system O

•What are the assumptions?

Trust in Formal Methods

1.Proof has no errors

•Bugs in automated theorem provers

2.Preconditions hold in environment in which S is to be used

3.S transformed into executable S¢ whose actions follow source code

–Compiler bugs, linker/loader/library problems

4.Hardware executes S¢ as intended

–Hardware bugs (Pentium f00f bug, for example)

Policy Models

Abstract description of a policy or class of policies

•Focus on points of interest in policies

–Security levels in multilevel security models

–Separation of duty in Clark-Wilson model

–Conflict of interest in Chinese Wall model

Types of Security Policies

•Military (governmental) security policy

–Policy primarily protecting confidentiality

•Commercial security policy

–Policy primarily protecting integrity

•Confidentiality policy

–Policy protecting only confidentiality

•Integrity policy

–Policy protecting only integrity

Integrity and Transactions

•Begin in consistent state

–“Consistent” defined by specification

•Perform series of actions (transaction)

–Actions cannot be interrupted

–If actions complete, system in consistent state

–If actions do not complete, system reverts to beginning (consistent) state

Security Policies

•Policy partitions system states into:

–Authorized (secure)

•These are states the system can enter

–Unauthorized (nonsecure)

•If the system enters any of these states, it’s a security violation

•Secure system

–Starts in authorized state

–Never enters unauthorized state

Confidentiality

•X set of entities, I information

•I has confidentiality property with respect to X if no x Î X can obtain information from I

•I can be disclosed to others

•Example:

–X set of students

–I final exam answer key

–I is confidential with respect to X if students cannot obtain final exam answer key