Automating Security Mediation Placement

Abstract. We present a framework that automatically produces suggestions to resolve type errors in security-typed programs, enabling legacy code to be retrofit with comprehensive security policy mediation. Resolving such type errors requires selecting a placement of mediation statements that implement runtime security decisions, such as declassifiers and authorization checks. Manually placing mediation statements in legacy code can be difficult, as there may be several, interacting type errors. In this paper, we solve this problem by constructing a graph that has the property that a vertex cut is equivalent to the points at which mediation statements can be inserted to allow the program to satisfy the type system. We build a framework that produces suggestions that are minimum cuts of this graph, and the framework can be customized to find suggestions that satisfy programmer requirements. Our framework implementation for Java programs computes suggestions for 20,000 line programs in le...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2010
• Where: ESOP
• Authors: Dave King 0002, Divya Muthukumaran, Sanjit A. Seshia, Somesh Jha, Susmit Jha, Trent Jaeger
• Keywords: ESOP 2010, Mediation Statements, Programming Languages, Programs Computes Suggestions, Type Errors