Publication Date

2023

Document Type

Thesis

Committee Members

Junjie Zhang, Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Lingwei Chen, Ph.D. (Committee Member); Krishnaprasad Thirunarayan, Ph.D. (Committee Member)

Degree Name

Master of Science in Cyber Security (M.S.C.S.)

Abstract

Deploying Mandatory Access Controls (MAC) is a popular way to provide host protection against malware. Unfortunately, current implementations lack the flexibility to adapt to emergent malware threats and are known for being difficult to configure. A core tenet of MAC security systems is that the policies they are deployed with are immutable from the host while they are active. This work looks at deploying a MAC system that leverages using encrypted security tokens to allow for redeploying policy configurations in real-time without the need to stop a running process. This is instrumental in developing an adaptive framework for security systems with a Zero Trust based approach to process authentication. This work also develops Path-Safe, a MAC security system that focuses on protecting filesystem access from unauthorized processes and malware. We show that our security system can mitigate real-world malware threats with low overhead and high accuracy.

Page Count

62

Department or Program

Department of Computer Science and Engineering

Year Degree Awarded

2023

ORCID ID

0000-0001-8943-5067


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