Skip to main content

Secure Information Flow as a Safety Problem

  • Conference paper
Static Analysis (SAS 2005)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNPSE,volume 3672))

Included in the following conference series:

Abstract

The termination insensitive secure information flow problem can be reduced to solving a safety problem via a simple program transformation. Barthe, D’Argenio, and Rezk coined the term “self-composition” to describe this reduction. This paper generalizes the self-compositional approach with a form of information downgrading recently proposed by Li and Zdancewic. We also identify a problem with applying the self-compositional approach in practice, and we present a solution to this problem that makes use of more traditional type-based approaches. The result is a framework that combines the best of both worlds, i.e., better than traditional type-based approaches and better than the self-compositional approach.

This research was supported in part by NASA Grant No. NNA04CI57A; NSF Grant Nos. CCR-0234689, CCR-0085949, and CCR-0326577. The information presented here does not necessarily reflect the position or the policy of the Government and no official endorsement should be inferred.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  1. Sabelfeld, A., Myers, A.C.: Language-based information-flow security. IEEE J. Selected Areas in Communications 21, 5–19 (2003)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. McLean, J.: A general theory of composition for trace sets closed under selective interleaving functions. In: SP 1994: Proceedings of the 1994 IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy, Washington, DC, USA, p. 79. IEEE Computer Society, Los Alamitos (1994)

    Google Scholar 

  3. Darvas, Á., Hähnle, R., Sands, D.: A theorem proving approach to analysis of secure information flow. In: Gorrieri, R. (ed.) Workshop on Issues in the Theory of Security, WITS, IFIP WG 1.7, ACM SIGPLAN and GI FoMSESS (2003)

    Google Scholar 

  4. Barthe, G., D’Argenio, P., Rezk, T.: Secure information flow by self-composition. In: Computer Security Fundation Workshop (CSFW 17). IEEE Press, Los Alamitos (2004)

    Google Scholar 

  5. Ball, T., Rajamani, S.K.: The SLAM project: debugging system software via static analysis. In: Proceedings of the 29th Annual ACM SIGPLAN-SIGACT Symposium on Principles of Programming Languages, Portland, Oregon, pp. 1–3 (2002)

    Google Scholar 

  6. Henzinger, T.A., Jhala, R., Majumdar, R., Sutre, G.: Lazy abstraction. In: Proceedings of the 29th Annual ACM SIGPLAN-SIGACT Symposium on Principles of Programming Languages, Portland, Oregon, pp. 58–70 (2002)

    Google Scholar 

  7. Ball, T., Podelski, A., Rajamani, S.K.: Relative completeness of abstraction refinement for software model checking. In: Katoen, J.-P., Stevens, P. (eds.) TACAS 2002. LNCS, vol. 2280, pp. 158–172. Springer, Heidelberg (2002)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  8. Podelski, A., Rybalchenko, A.: Transition predicate abstraction and fair termination. In: Proceedings of the 32nd Annual ACM SIGPLAN-SIGACT Symposium on Principles of Programming Languages, Long Beach, California, pp. 132–144 (2005)

    Google Scholar 

  9. Li, P., Zdancewic, S.: Downgrading policies and relaxed noninterference. In: Proceedings of the 32nd Annual ACM SIGPLAN-SIGACT Symposium on Principles of Programming Languages, Long Beach, California, pp. 158–170 (2005)

    Google Scholar 

  10. Zdancewic, S., Myers, A.C.: Robust declassification. In: CSFW 2001: Proceedings of the 14th IEEE Workshop on Computer Security Foundations, pp. 15–23. IEEE Computer Society, Los Alamitos (2001)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  11. Sabelfeld, A., Myers, A.C.: A model for delimited information release. In: Futatsugi, K., Mizoguchi, F., Yonezaki, N. (eds.) ISSS 2003. LNCS, vol. 3233, pp. 174–191. Springer, Heidelberg (2004)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  12. Giacobazzi, R., Mastroeni, I.: Abstract non-interference: parameterizing non-interference by abstract interpretation. In: Proceedings of the 31st Annual ACM SIGPLAN-SIGACT Symposium on Principles of Programming Languages, Venice, Italy, pp. 186–197 (2004)

    Google Scholar 

  13. Terauchi, T., Aiken, A.: Secure information flow as a safety problem. University of California, Berkeley UCB//CSD-05-1396 (Technical report)

    Google Scholar 

  14. Volpano, D., Smith, G.: A type-based approach to program security. In: Bidoit, M., Dauchet, M. (eds.) CAAP 1997, FASE 1997, and TAPSOFT 1997. LNCS, vol. 1214, pp. 607–621. Springer, Heidelberg (1997)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2005 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

About this paper

Cite this paper

Terauchi, T., Aiken, A. (2005). Secure Information Flow as a Safety Problem. In: Hankin, C., Siveroni, I. (eds) Static Analysis. SAS 2005. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 3672. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/11547662_24

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/11547662_24

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-28584-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-31971-9

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics