Multilevel Secure Transaction Processing

Information security is receiving a great deal of attention as computers increasingly process more and more sensitive information. A multilevel secure database management system (MLS DBMS) is designed to store, retrieve and process information in compliance with certain mandatory security requirements, essential for protecting sensitive information from unauthorized access, modification and abuse. Such systems are characterized by data objects labeled at different security levels and accessed by users cleared to those levels. Unless transaction processing modules for these systems are designed carefully, they can be exploited to leak sensitive information to unauthorized users. In recent years, considerable research has been devoted to the area of multilevel secure transactions that has impacted the design and development of trusted MLS DBMS products. Multilevel Secure Transaction Processing presents the progress and achievements made in this area. The book covers state-of-the-art research in developing secure transaction processing for popular MLS DBMS architectures, such as kernelized, replicated, and distributed architectures, and advanced transaction models such as workflows, long duration and nested models. Further, it explores the technical challenges that require future attention. Multilevel Secure Transaction Processing is an excellent reference for researchers and developers in the area of multilevel secure database systems and may be used in advanced level courses in database security, information security, advanced database systems, and transaction processing.

A TCB and security kernel architecture for supporting multi-threaded, queue-driven transaction processing applications in a multilevel secure environment is presented. Our design exploits hardware security features of the Intel 80x86 processor family. Intel's CPU architecture provides hardware with two distinct descriptor tables. We use one of these in the usual way for process isolation. For each process, the descriptor table holds the descriptors of "system-low" segments, such as code segments, used by every thread in a process. We use the second table to hold descriptors for segments known to individual threads within the process. This allocation, together with an appropriately designed scheduling policy, permits us to avoid the full cost of process creation when only switching between threads of different security classes in the same process. Where large numbers of transactions are encountered on transaction queues, this approach has benefits over traditional multilevel systems.

Security of Data and Transaction Processing brings together in one place important contributions and up-to-date research results in this fast moving area. Security of Data and Transaction Processing serves as an excellent reference, providing insight into some of the most challenging research issues in the field.

The purpose of this book is to discuss, in depth, the current state of research and practice in database security, to enable readers to expand their knowledge. The book brings together contributions from experts in the field throughout the world. Database security is still a key topic in mist businesses and in the public sector, having implications for the whole of society.

Replicated architecture has been proposed as a way to obtain acceptable performance in a multilevel secure database system. This architecture contains a separate database for each security level such that each contains replicated data from lower security classes. The consistency of the values of replicated data items must be maintained without unnecessarily interfering with concurrency of database operations. This paper provides a protocol to do this that is secure, since it is free of covert channels, and also ensures one-copy serializability of executing transactions. The protocol can be implemented with untrusted processes for both concurrency and recovery.

Database and Application Security XV provides a forum for original research results, practical experiences, and innovative ideas in database and application security. With the rapid growth of large databases and the application systems that manage them, security issues have become a primary concern in business, industry, government and society. These concerns are compounded by the expanding use of the Internet and wireless communication technologies. This volume covers a wide variety of topics related to security and privacy of information in systems and applications, including: Access control models; Role and constraint-based access control; Distributed systems; Information warfare and intrusion detection; Relational databases; Implementation issues; Multilevel systems; New application areas including XML. Database and Application Security XV contains papers, keynote addresses, and panel discussions from the Fifteenth Annual Working Conference on Database and Application Security, organized by the International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP) Working Group 11.3 and held July 15-18, 2001 in Niagara on the Lake, Ontario, Canada.

Presents theories and models associated with information privacy and safeguard practices to help anchor and guide the development of technologies, standards, and best practices. Provides recent, comprehensive coverage of all issues related to information security and ethics, as well as the opportunities, future challenges, and emerging trends related to this subject.

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