Description
Attack Surface Analysis is about mapping out what parts of a system need to be reviewed and tested for security vulnerabilities. The point of Attack Surface Analysis is to understand the risk areas in an application, to make developers and security specialists aware of what parts of the application are open to attack, to find ways of minimizing this, and to notice when and how the Attack Surface changes and what this means from a risk perspective.
Two previous work on measuring attack surface are: Relative Attack Surface Quotient (RSQ) (http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~wing/publications/Howard-Wing03.pdf) from Microsoft published in 2003, and Attack Surface Metric (http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~pratyus/tse10.pdf) from Carnegie Mellon published in 2010.
Research questions could be:
- Is that possible to monitor the quantitative attack surface measures along the software application development?
- How effective and efficient could security be improved by measuring attack surfaces?
- In the work Attack Surface Metric, the direct entry and exit points could be identified directly. Could we develop automated tools to identify indirect entry and exit points?
What will the work environment look like?
You will be embedded in the Research team of the Software Improvement Group. One of SIG's researchers will be appointed as a daily supervisor. Apart from daily supervision, you will interact with the other researchers on a regular basis. SIG is a dynamic, demanding, and rewarding working environment.
Students are expected to perform solid scientific work that is at the same time relevant for practitioners. You will get ample support and supervision and in return we expect you to learn fast and take responsibility for obtaining excellent results.