CRII: SaTC: Creating and Managing Structurally-Morphing IT Systems - Moving Targets

当前的信息技术（IT）系统从配置的角度来看是相对静态的，并为对手提供了宝贵的时间优势来突破它们。一个新的概念，称为移动目标防御或MTD，动态重新配置系统，以增加攻击者的不确定性和复杂性，减少他们的机会窗口，并提高他们的侦察和攻击努力的成本。所有这些都有助于加强安全。不幸的是，目前的移动目标防御方法往往只解决IT系统的各个方面或组件，而不是整个系统的整体。虽然这些努力是重要的基石，如何一个大型复杂的系统可以动态地重新配置和适应仍然是一个开放的研究问题。 该项目研究了采用移动目标防御来创建和管理结构变形IT系统的可行性和挑战，以便更好地保护它们。该项目还通过将研究成果整合到网络防御课程中，培训不同级别和来自代表性不足群体的学生，并通过移动目标防御向安全研究社区提供有关企业系统防御的机会和障碍的信息，从而为课程改进提供机会。该项目开发了一个全面的框架/平台，用于创建和管理结构变化的IT系统。该框架由几个组成部分：一种方法，抽象的功能和结构的企业系统到一个高层次的多层模型，一个编译器，将抽象的要求转化为一个实际的系统，和一个移动目标防御策略生成器，以协助和积极评估成本的各种组合的系统变化对实现的安全效益和性能开销。该框架利用现成的虚拟化环境、容器化技术和配置管理工具进行原型化。属于移动目标防御基础设施的重要组件操作使用硬件支持的安全飞地的概念来保护，以进一步增强框架的安全性。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Current information technology (IT) systems are relatively static from a configuration perspective and give adversaries the valuable advantage of time for breaching them. A new concept, called Moving Target Defense or MTD, dynamically reconfigures systems to increase uncertainty and complexity for attackers, reduce their window of opportunity, and raise the costs of their reconnaissance and attack endeavors. All of these contribute towards increased security. Unfortunately, current moving target defense approaches tend to address only individual aspects or components of an IT system and not holistically the entire system. While such efforts are important building-blocks, how a large complex system can be dynamically reconfigured and adapted remains an open research problem. This project investigates the feasibility and challenges related to adopting moving target defense for creating and managing structurally morphing IT systems in order to better protect them. It also provides opportunities for curriculum enhancement via integrating research results in cyber defense courses, training students at different levels and from under-represented groups and informing the security research community about opportunities and impediments to enterprise system defenses via moving target defense.The project develops a comprehensive framework/platform for creating and managing structurally changing IT systems. The framework consists of several components: a methodology to abstract the functionality and structure of enterprise systems into a high-level multi-layered model, a compiler that converts the abstract requirements into an actual system, and a moving target defense strategy generator to assist and proactively evaluate the cost of various combinations of system changes against the security benefits achieved and performance overheads incurred. The framework is prototyped leveraging readily available virtualized environments, containerization techniques and configuration management tools. Vital component operations belonging to the moving target defense infrastructure are protected using the notion of hardware supported security enclaves to further enhance the security of the framework.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.