IEEE TFIA Workshop

Welcome to the
IEEE Computer Society
Task Force on Information Assurance

Workshop

AGENDA LOCATION REGISTRATION BACKGROUND ORGANIZERS CONTACTS SPEAKERS

SISW2001

IEEE - NASA Workshop Security in Storage Workshop
Information Assurance - The Storage Security Perspective

Tuesday, December 4, 2001, 9am-5pm

Agenda

Registration 0900
Continental Breakfast 0915
Introduction 1000

Session 1: Standards 1015 - 1115

Bruce Haddon, Sun Microsystems
"Security in Storage Management: The Standards Question", Presentation (PPT)

Art Edmonds, Hitachi Data Systems
"Networked Storage Security Framework Considerations", Presentation (PDF)
T11 (Fibre Channel) Storage Security, IETF's IP storage security directions.

Discussion 1115

Lunch (Provided) 1130

Session 2: Technologies 1245 - 1415

Giuseppe Ateniese, Jonathan Stanton, Christian Scheideler, Baruch Awerbuch, Gerald Masson
Johns Hopkins University Information Security Institute
see also Center for Networking and Distributed Systems
"Cost-Driven Security and Reliability for Scalable Distributed Storage Systems", Presentation (PPT)

Nabil Adam, Rutgers University, CIMIC/MERI
Center for Information Management, Integration, and Connectivity
"Content-based Authorization for Digital Library Storage Systems", Presentation (PPT)

Jim Hughes, StorageTek, SNIA Security Group
"Persistent Security" Presentation (PDF) (must be rotated 90 deg CW in Acrobat Reader), SecureFS

BREAK 1415

Session 3: Fielding Solutions 1445 - 1615

Peter Braam, Cluster File Systems, Inc.
"Data Security and Object Based Storage" Presentation (PDF)

Kamy Kavianian, Brocade Network Security & Architecture Group
"Fabric Security -- Securing Your SAN Infrastructure"

Christopher Spirito and Sue Labonte, EMC
"Leveraging Enterprise Storage to enhance Information Assurance Initiatives"
Presentation (PPT)

Wrapup 1615
End 1645
Clear of Building 1700

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LOCATION

US Fish and Wildlife Service Patuxent Research Refuge

Site Information
Wildlife Visitor Center

Driving Directions, Map
10901 Scarlet Tanager Loop, Laurel, MD 20709 USA

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REGISTRATION

We appreciate your interest, and regret that the registration limit has been reached. (November 20, 2001)

If you are still interested in attending, please send me a email message, subject "workshop attendance",
and I will let you know if space becomes available through cancellation or other means.

Thanks!
Jack Cole
jack.cole@ieee.org

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BACKGROUND

Information Assurance (IA) is a new Information Technology (IT) area most closely associated with detection and response to vulnerabilities and events relating to cyber attacks. But the broader scope of IA relates to U.S. Presidential Decision Direction 63 calling for protection of infrastructures critical to society (in which cyber attack is one of many threats to critical infrastructures), and to the fundamental need in IT for timely, undisturbed delivery of information to pre-determined recipients.

Developed societies are highly dependent on the flow of information for economic health and defense. Incapacity or disruption of this flow can be especially debilitating for telecommunications, electrical power systems, the fuel supply, financial institutions, transportation, water supply systems, emergency services, and government. High on the list of recognized threats to this flow is that of cyber attacks. A less visible, but highly potent threat is that created by unbalanced technological developments.

Storage volumes have been growing at more than 100% per annum for the past several years, and at a rate ten times faster than improvements in storage throughput. The number of storage devices required to provide read/write access to this growing volume has increased to a point where it is no longer possible to attach this many devices directly to server computers and maintain acceptable performance. Networked storage, as NAS (Network Attached Storage, using NFS or CIFS) or SAN (Storage Area Networks, where a separate network, based on Fibre Channel connects a number of storage devices through switches to servers) have provided a means to accommodate a high number of devices by aggregating storage devices on local area (NAS) or special (SAN) networks.

And while security issues in IP networks are somewhat understood and managed, not many SAN implementers worry about the integrity and security of the digital assets committed to their care. Because the Fiber Channel (FC) network is a separate network, many have the impression that their storage is secure and not subject to penetration and spoofing. A SAN network, however, is not a fortress. It is vulnerable at the switches and fabrics, and because a SAN by its very nature is distributed, physical security of servers, switches and wiring cabinets may be difficult to enforce, since they may be geographically distributed. As storage systems become even more distributed in a world of wireless communications and peer-to-peer computing, better schemes to protect digital assets must be devised.

Because there are many information technology areas that must function together to assure the flow of information vital to our society, it is essential that individuals from these underlying technology areas work together to develop comprehensive, cross-technology strategies to improve interoperability and to prepare future technologies assuring the flow of information.

Focus of Workshops

This workshop begins a series of technical meetings meant to join the overall goals of IA with the special views and requirements of IT areas underlying IA. This first workshop will focus on the problems of storage systems generally and SAN security specifically, comparing these with the problems and successes in IP security, examining the weaknesses of both. Lessons learned from IP security can, with modifications, be applied to SANs. We hope to sound an alarm that will alert SAN practitioners, implementers, and designers alike.

Future Workshops will deal with the perspectives of other technology areas, including (list neither ordered nor exclusive): Networking, Mobile Networking, Network Management, Data Engineering, Operating Systems, Communications, Data Mining, Pattern Recognition, Software Engineering, Mobile Code, Cryptology, Privacy, Computer Forensics, and Document Management.

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ORGANIZERS

Steering Committee:
Merritt Jones/MITRE
Robert Chadduck/NARA

Program Committee:
Jack Cole, Army Research Laboratory, IAC (co-chair)
Ben Kobler, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (co-chair)
Merritt Jones/MITRE
P C Hariharan/SES
Robert Chadduck/NARA

Sponsored by:
IEEE Computer Society Task Force on Information Assurance
IEEE Computer Society Mass Storage Systems Technical Committee
U.S. Army Research Laboratory
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
NARA

CONTACTS

Jack Cole, cole@arl.army.mil, +1 (410) 278-9276
Ben Kobler, kobler@gsfc.nasa.gov +1 (301) 614-5231

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SPEAKERS (in alphabetic order):

Dr. Nabil R. Adam, Chair, IEEE Digital Libraries Technical Committee
Director Center for Information Management, Integration and Connectivity, Rutgers University

"Content-based Authorization for Digital Library Storage Systems"

We consider a typical digital libraries (DL) environment which typically is characterized by dynamic user population, often making accesses from remote locations, and by an extraordinarily large amount of multimedia information stored in a variety of formats. In such an environment there is also a need to specify access policies on the basis of user qualifications and characteristics, rather than user identity. Another crucial requirement is the support for content-dependent authorizations on digital library objects.

Digital libraries environment introduces several challenging requirements with respect to the formulation, specification and enforcement of adequate data protection policies. Unlike conventional database environments, a DL environment. In this talk, we will present a content-based authorization model that is capable of specifying access control to multimedia objects, in particular, semi-structured documents and images. We will also discuss authentication of qualifications and characteristics of users in a heterogeneous distributed environment.

Dr. Giuseppe Ateniese, Jonathan Stanton, Christian Scheideler, Baruch Awerbuch, Gerald Masson
Johns Hopkins University Information Security Institute
"Cost-Driven Security and Reliability for Scalable Distributed Storage Systems"
Maintaining the security of a complex distributed system over time in the
presence of inevitable faults and compromised machines requires an adaptive
approach to security. The concept of cost-driven security realistically
captures the idea that attack events launched by an adversary can have
varying costs both in the resources required for the attack and the damage
done to the system by a successful attack. This cost-driven security model
extends previous work on proactive security and threshold cryptography in
order to realistically represent the heterogeneous, and ever changing
environment of a distributed system.

Scalable, distributed storage systems are a good task for cost-driven
security because they require the continued security of long-term data
while making that data available to a large number of users who are widely
dispersed in the network. We will discuss:

Proposed solutions to several barriers preventing proactive security
systems from being used in practice.
- fast, dynamic regeneration of shares in an (n,m,t) model
- fault-tolerant, dynamic naming of nodes who contain shares
- end-system support for 'refreshing' the system to a secure state

How the cost-driven security model can capture realistic threat scenarios
and make good decisions on how to adapt to them.
Peter J. Braam
Cluster File Systems, Inc.

The Lustre cluster file system (www.lustre.org) heavily leverages object based storage, and is a candidate file system for National Lab environments. Our design is mostly aligned with T10 OSD proposal but allows a layering of logical object modules between file system and network and between network and persistent storage.

We will show how this can lead to a streamlined file system security architecture as well as offer room for add-ons such as content based authorization.

Art Edmonds
NCITS T11 (Device Level Interface) Editor
Senior Director of Technology
Hitachi Data Systems
Dr. Bruce K. Haddon, SUN
Editor of IEEE 1244.2 Standard for Media Management System
Session Security, Authentication, Initialization Protocol�
"Security in Storage Management: The Standards Question"

"Communications security, and protocol interoperability, are somewhat at odds. Finding a satisfactory resolution requires balancing the needs and requirements of different constituencies. The use of existing standards provides a path acceptable to many, if not all. The application of this principle in the storage space will be discussed."

Jim Hughes
STK Fellow, Chair SNIA security group, "Persistent Security"

As SANs become larger, more complex and interconnected, the possibility of unauthorized access to networks, intercepted communications or the storage media itself increases. This talk will discuss the state of privacy, integrity, and key management for the protection of data traversing shared SANs and also at rest. Technologies to be discussed include Encrypted Tape, Disk, File Systems and High Integrity Archives.

Kamy Kavianian
Brocade Network Security and Architecture, "Fabric Security -- Securing Your SAN Infrastructure"

As Storage Area Networks become larger, more complex, and extend over greater distances, security issues gain in importance. Brocade has developed a highly secure, scalable, fully manageable, resilient, standards-based security infrastructure for heterogeneous SAN and Fabric environments. Successful SAN security starts with risk analysis, where different facets of the network are analyzed to determine weaknesses and security holes. Next, effective security policies must be created to provide the guiding principals. Security implementation covers access control, authentication, and confidentiality. The final elements of a comprehensive security solution entail monitoring and auditing, which feed information back to the risk analysis process in a continuing cycle that ensures continuous improvement.

Christopher Spirito and Sue Labonte
EMC Corporation
"Leveraging Enterprise Storage to enhance Information Assurance Initiatives"

The ability to move and replicate information via the SAN/ESN allows organizations to enhance their IA initiatives. Three such implementations include enhancing the forensic collection process, implementing a tripwire-like application that alerts based upon a correlated table of track/inode information rather than sitting in memory / on the volume that is being examined, and moving information across the SAN/ESN to lessen network load and minimize network-based exploits via network protection devices. EMC has the capability to rigorously define which volumes are projected across which ports to which hosts. This includes the ability to ensure that in the case that multiple volumes are projected across a single port to many systems, that the systems will only see a finite subset of the set of projected volumes based upon the ACLs.

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updated Tuesday, December 11, 2001
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