Information flow control for workflow management systems
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Thomas Bauereiß
Thomas Bauereiß received his Diplom in Computer Science from the University of Erlangen-Nürnberg. Since 2012, he is a junior researcher and PhD student at the Cyber-Physical Systems Department at DFKI Bremen. His research interests include formal methods and security, focusing on information flow control.
Deutsches Forschungszentrum für Künstliche Intelligenz, Bibliothekstr. 1, D-28359 Bremen
Dieter Hutter received his PhD from the University of Karlsruhe working on inductive theorem proving. In 1991 he moved to the Saarland University and joined DFKI in 1993 as a member of J.H. Siekmann's resarch group. He lead various projects in Formal Methods and Security. Moving to Bremen in 2008, he is now vice director of the Cyber-Physical System Department at DFKI and honorary professor at Bremen University.
Deutsches Forschungszentrum für Künstliche Intelligenz, Bibliothekstr. 1, D-28359 Bremen
Abstract
Workflow management plays an important role in analyzing and automating business processes. Security requirements in workflow management systems are typically mapped to (role-based) access control configurations. This paper focuses on information flow control, taking into account implicit information leaks. The presented approach operates on a specification level in which no executable program is available yet. We illustrate the modeling of a workflow management system as a composition of state-event systems, each representing one of the activities of the workflow. This facilitates distributed deployment and eases verification by splitting up the verification of the overall system into verification of the individual components. Confidentiality requirements are modeled in terms of information flow predicates using the MAKS framework and verified following existing decomposition methodologies, which are adapted for open systems with ongoing user interaction. We discuss the interaction with other security requirements, notably separation of duty.
About the authors
Thomas Bauereiß received his Diplom in Computer Science from the University of Erlangen-Nürnberg. Since 2012, he is a junior researcher and PhD student at the Cyber-Physical Systems Department at DFKI Bremen. His research interests include formal methods and security, focusing on information flow control.
Deutsches Forschungszentrum für Künstliche Intelligenz, Bibliothekstr. 1, D-28359 Bremen
Dieter Hutter received his PhD from the University of Karlsruhe working on inductive theorem proving. In 1991 he moved to the Saarland University and joined DFKI in 1993 as a member of J.H. Siekmann's resarch group. He lead various projects in Formal Methods and Security. Moving to Bremen in 2008, he is now vice director of the Cyber-Physical System Department at DFKI and honorary professor at Bremen University.
Deutsches Forschungszentrum für Künstliche Intelligenz, Bibliothekstr. 1, D-28359 Bremen
©2014 Walter de Gruyter Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Editorial
- Reliably secure software systems
- Special Issue
- Making security type systems less ad hoc
- The linear-hyper-branching spectrum of temporal logics
- Checking probabilistic noninterference using JOANA
- Confidentiality for Android apps: Specification and verification
- Information flow control for workflow management systems
- Security in e-voting
- Self-Portrayals of GI Junior Fellows
- Designing networks for challenging applications
- Theory for processing data on the Web
- Distinguished Dissertations
- On the insecurity of XML Security
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Editorial
- Reliably secure software systems
- Special Issue
- Making security type systems less ad hoc
- The linear-hyper-branching spectrum of temporal logics
- Checking probabilistic noninterference using JOANA
- Confidentiality for Android apps: Specification and verification
- Information flow control for workflow management systems
- Security in e-voting
- Self-Portrayals of GI Junior Fellows
- Designing networks for challenging applications
- Theory for processing data on the Web
- Distinguished Dissertations
- On the insecurity of XML Security
