Security Models

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security models

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	Autonomous Computing
	Differentiated Security
	Fortress Model
	Immune System Model
	WS-Security

Some of the material on this page is extracted from articles and reports available from the CBDi Forum.

Differentiated Security

veryard projects > security > security models > differentiated security

Differentiated security means subdividing the population into small differentiated clusters. At the extreme, each individual belongs to a different class. This makes it much more difficult to scale or replicate attacks, since each cluster/individual has a different security profile and there should be no common weaknesses.

	For a detailed discussion of the "Differentiated Security" pattern, see our report Web Services Security, available from the CBDi Forum.
	Differentiated Services

Autonomous Computing

veryard projects > security > security models > autonomous computing

Pat Helland of Microsoft has proposed the Autonomous Computing model as an application design pattern for cooperation between independent systems that do not trust each other. It has two key notions.

Fiefdom	An independent computing environment that refuses to trust any outsiders and maintains tight control over a set of mission critical data
Emissary	A computing component that helps prepare requests to submit to a fiefdom. It operates exclusively on published (snapshot) reference data and single-user data.

Helland uses the autonomous computing model to explain many of the new types of applications including offline apps, scalable web-farms, B2B apps, content syndication and content aggregation. (How secure are these then?)

HPTS 2001 Agenda
TechEd Agenda
IT: Agents for change to rove the Net

Fortress Model

veryard projects > security > security models > fortress

Roger Sessions of Object Watch has combined the Autonomous Computing model with other elements to produce an elaborate Fortress Model of computer security. A fortress is a self-contained software system, contains business logic (grunts) and private data (strongboxes), and is surrounded by an unbreachable wall. Communication with the outside world passes through a drawbridge, and is controlled by guards and by treaties with allies.

Object Watch Newsletter

I have many reservations about these models. Here are three to be going on with.

Reliance on an absolute, binary notion of trust. Anything or anybody inside the wall is trusted absolutely, anything or anybody outside the wall is mistrusted.

Reliance on simple topology. A wall creates a simple enclosed space, a straightforward boundary between inside and outside.

Reliance on technology. The fortress model depends on firewalls and other security mechanisms.

Immune System Model

veryard projects > security > security models > immune system

Meanwhile, IBM appears to be drawn towards an entirely different model of autonomous computing. According to Tim Macdonald of Newsfactor Network, quoting IBM hardware strategist Irving Wladawsky-Berger, what IBM has in mind (along with a host of other companies doing related research) is something similar to the human immune system, capable of recognizing foreign anomalies and sending agents to destroy them. The goal is to survive the unpredictable.

Newsfactor Network, April 2001
IBM Security: Research
Research - Computer Immune Systems

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	Reliance on an absolute, binary notion of trust. Anything or anybody inside the wall is trusted absolutely, anything or anybody outside the wall is mistrusted.
	Reliance on simple topology. A wall creates a simple enclosed space, a straightforward boundary between inside and outside.
	Reliance on technology. The fortress model depends on firewalls and other security mechanisms.