Domain 3: Security Architecture And Engineering (Weightage 13%)

Domain 3: Security Architecture And Engineering (Weightage 13%) Security engineering is the process of building and maintaining the required information systems and related sub-systems for delivering the functionalities.

This domain talks about various security models, physical security and cryptography. It also includes core the concepts of symmetric encryption, asymmetric encryption, and hash functions.

Security engineering is the process of building and maintaining the required information systems and related sub-systems for delivering the functionalities. This domain talks about various secure design concepts like layering which separates hardware and software functionality into modular tiers, abstraction which is basically hiding unnecessary details from the user.

The Bell-LaPadula model is focused on maintaining the confidentiality of objects, it has following properties Simple Security Property: “No read up”, Security Property: “No write down”, Strong Tranquility Property and Weak Tranquility Property.

Biba is the model of choice when integrity protection is vital and has two rules Simple Integrity Axiom: “No read down” and Integrity Axiom: “No write up”.

Clark-Wilson is a real-world integrity model that protects integrity by requiring subjects to access objects via programs and has two policies well-formed transactions and separation of duties. The Chinese wall model also called as Brewer-Nash model avoids conflict of interests from accessing multiple conflict of interests.

Next, it talks about Open systems which uses open hardware and standards, while closed system uses proprietary Hardware or software. A secure hardware must provide integrity, and availability for processes, data, and users. It consists of the system unit, motherboard, the CPU, the computer bus, Arithmetic logic unit and control unit, pipelining, interrupts.

A process is an executable program and its associated data loaded and running in memory. A thread is a lightweight process. Multitasking allows multiple tasks (heavyweight processes) to run simultaneously on one CPU. Multiprocessing has a fundamental difference from multitasking: it runs multiple processes on multiple CPUs. CISC (complex instruction set computer) and RISC (reduced instruction set computer) are two forms of CPU design. CISC uses a large set of complex machine language instructions, while RISC uses a reduced set of simpler instructions. A trusted platform module (TPM) chip is a processor that can provide additional security capabilities at the hardware level.

Next it talks about memory protection that prevents one process from affecting the confidentiality, integrity, or availability of another. Process isolation is a logical control that attempts to prevent one process from interfering with another. Hardware segmentation takes process isolation one step further by mapping processes to specific memory locations. Virtual memory provides virtual address mapping between applications and hardware memory. WORM (write once, read many) storage helps assure the integrity of the data it contains; there is some assurance that it has not been and cannot be altered, short of destroying the media itself.

Next, it covers about Virtualization, Hypervisor, Cloud computing, Grid computing, Peer-to-peer (P2P) networks and Thin clients. System threats, vulnerabilities, and countermeasures describe security architecture and design vulnerabilities. It covers different aspects of security such as a covert channel which is any communication that violates security policy whereas a backdoor is a shortcut in a system that allows a user to bypass security checks such as username/password authentication, to log in.It also covers about malware which is the generic term for any type of software that attacks an application or system. It also explains about worms, virus, Trojans, rootkits, packers, logic bombs and various