Security-by-contract for the OSGi platform

O. Gadyatskaya, F. Massacci, A. Philippov

Research output: Chapter in Book / Report / Conference proceedingConference contributionAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

The natural business model of OSGi is dynamic loading and removal of bundles or services on an OSGi platform. If bundles can come from different stakeholders, how do we make sure that one's services will only be invoked by the authorized bundles? A simple solution is to interweave functional and security logic within each bundle, but this decreases the benefits of using a common platform for service deployment and is a well-known source of errors. Our solution is to use the Security-by-Contract methodology (SxC) for loading time security verification to separate the security from the business logic while controlling access to applications. The basic idea is that each bundle has a contract embedded into its manifest, that contains details on functional requirements and permissions for access by other bundles on the platform. During bundle installation the contract is matched with the platform security policy (aggregating the contracts of the installed bundles). We illustrate the SxC methodology on a concrete case study for home gateways and discuss how it can help to overcome the OSGi security management shortcomings. © 2012 IFIP International Federation for Information Processing.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationInformation Security and Privacy Research - 27th IFIP TC 11 Information Security and Privacy Conference, SEC 2012, Proceedings
PublisherSpringer New York LLC
Pages364-375
ISBN (Print)9783642304354
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2012
Externally publishedYes
Event27th IFIP TC 11 Information Security and Privacy Conference, SEC 2012 - , Greece
Duration: 4 Jun 20126 Jun 2012

Publication series

NameIFIP Advances in Information and Communication Technology
ISSN (Print)1868-4238

Conference

Conference27th IFIP TC 11 Information Security and Privacy Conference, SEC 2012
Country/TerritoryGreece
Period4/06/126/06/12

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