Using Architecture to Reason about Information Security

Abstract: We demonstrate, by a number of examples, that information-flow security properties can be proved from abstract architectural descriptions, that describe only the causal structure of a system and local properties of trusted components. We specify these architectural descriptions of systems by generalizing intransitive noninterference policies to admit the ability to filter information passed between communicating domains. A notion of refinement of such system architectures is developed that supports top-down development of architectural specifications and proofs by abstraction of information security properties. We also show that, in a concrete setting where the causal structure is enforced by access control, a static check of the access control setting plus local verification of the trusted components is sufficient to prove that a generalized intransitive noninterference policy is satisfied.