Masters Theses

Jason Madden

Abstract

"Deeply embedded Cyber Physical Systems (CPS) are infrastructures that have significant cyber and physical components that interact with each other in complex ways. These interactions can violate a system's security policy, leading to the leakage of rights and unintended information flow. This thesis will explore information flow as it uses a public channel. In order to exemplify the use of the public channel, a vehicle being composed of the computer system and its operators will show how information is disclosed to an observer. The example is made up of a vehicle traveling across some terrain with an observer watching the car. The information that is trying to be hidden is the controller of the vehicle. The observer then uses the contextual information, based on the topography and previous knowledge about an automobile, to attempt to learn some of the events taking place in the car's computer system and the actions of the driver. The combination of the observer and the passage of information from the car to the observer forms a public channel. This model is analyzed for both nondeducibility, noninference, and properties about its information flow. The investigation reveals that the same information that was disclosed with one topography is hidden with a different topography. In security, the knowledge that information flow exists is a violation. This is known as leakage. To remedy the weaknesses observed during the analysis, a method to obfuscate the information flow is introduced. The fact that important information can be camouflaged, even while it flows over a public channel, is an important observation of this thesis. This process of obfuscation can be applied to other cyber physical systems to secure the public channel"--Abstract, page iii.

Advisor(s)

McMillin, Bruce M.

Committee Member(s)

Crow, Mariesa
Tauritz, Daniel R.

Department(s)

Computer Science

Degree Name

M.S. in Computer Science

Publisher

Missouri University of Science and Technology

Publication Date

Spring 2013

Pagination

ix, 62 pages

Note about bibliography

Includes bibliographical references.

Rights

© 2013 Jason Madden, All rights reserved.

Document Type

Thesis - Open Access

File Type

text

Language

English

Subject Headings

Embedded computer systems -- TestingCyber intelligence (Computer security)

Thesis Number

T 10296

Electronic OCLC #

853278701

Download

Share

 
COinS