MANSEC

Managing the Security of Evolving and Adaptive Systems

The proliferation of computers in society has meant that valuable business and mission critical assets are increasingly stored and manipulated by computer-based systems. These systems can evolve over long periods of development and use, or can change dynamically in a rapidly changing operational environment. The emergence of new technological infrastructures, such as the Cloud and mobile computing devices, has focused attention on the security challenges raised by the need to manage such evolution and adaptation.

Locating critical assets in the Cloud, establishing and evolving trust relationships between Cloud components and users, identifying new threats in a dynamically changing operational environment, and addressing emergent vulnerabilities that result from complex, technology-mediated social interaction, are some examples of where such security concerns are particularly challenging.

ManSec is developing an analytical framework and associated tools for addressing security concerns, at both design and run time. One particular focus of ManSec is on developing support for Digital Forensics in the Cloud – that iswtodesign and adapt software to facilitate forensic investigations in the face of expected and unexpected attacks.

ManSec will deliver tools for representing precise security requirements of users and enterprises, and for analysing their relationships to each other and to the technical infrastructures in which they are implemented. It will also support the systematic and dynamic evolution of systems to address changing requirements, and provide exemplars demonstrating security assurance.