Osi Security Architecture

OSI SECURITY ARCHITECTURE – ATTACKS, SERVICES AND
MECHANISMS
INTRODUCTION
Computer data often travels from one computer to another, leaving the safety of
its protected physical surroundings. Once the data is out of hand, people with bad
intention could modify or forge your data, either for amusement or for their own benefit.
Cryptography can reformat and transform our data, making it safer on its trip
between computers. The technology is based on the essentials of secret codes, augmented
by modern mathematics that protects our data in powerful ways.
THE OSI SECURITY ARCHITECTURE
To assess effectively the security needs of an organization and to evaluate and choose
various security products and policies, the manager responsible for security needs some
systematic way of defining the requirements for security and characterizing the
approaches to satisfying those requirements. The OSI security architecture was developed
in the context of the OSI protocol architecture, which is described in Appendix H.
However, for our purposes in this chapter, an understanding of the OSI protocol
architecture is not required.
For our purposes, the OSI security architecture provides a useful, if abstract, overview of
many of the concepts.. The OSI security architecture focuses on security attacks,
mechanisms, and services. These can be defined briefly as follows:
Threat
A potential for violation of security, which exists when there is a circumstance,

capability, action, or event that could breach security and cause harm. That is, a threat is
a possible danger that might exploit a vulnerability.
Attack
An assault on system security that derives from an intelligent threat; that is, an intelligent
act that is a deliberate attempt (especially in the sense of a method or technique) to evade
security services and violate the security policy of a system.
Security Attacks, Services And Mechanisms

To assess the security needs of an organization effectively, the manager responsible for
security needs some systematic way of defining the requirements for security and
characterization of approaches to satisfy those requirements. One approach
is to consider three aspects of information security:
Security attack – Any action that compromises the security of information
owned by an organization.
Security mechanism – A mechanism that is designed to detect, prevent or
recover from a security attack.
Security service – A service that enhances the security of the data processing
systems and the information transfers of an organization. The services are
intended to counter security attacks and they make use of one or more security
mechanisms to provide the service.

SECURITY SERVICES
The classification of security services are as follows:
Confidentiality: Ensures that the information in a computer system and

transmitted information are accessible only for reading by authorized parties.
Eg., printing, displaying and other forms of disclosure.
Authentication: Ensures that the origin of a message or electronic document is

correctly identified, with an assurance that the identity is not false.
Integrity: Ensures that only authorized parties are able to modify computer

system assets and transmitted information. Modification includes writing,
changing status, deleting, creating and delaying or replaying of transmitted
messages.
Non repudiation: Requires that neither the sender nor the receiver of a message
be able to deny the transmission.
Access control: Requires that access to information resources may be controlled

by or the target system.
Availability: Requires that computer system assets be available to authorized

parties when needed
AUTHENTICATION
The assurance that the communicating entity is the one that it claims to be.
Peer Entity Authentication

Used in association with a logical connection to provide confidence in the identity of the
entities connected.
Data Origin Authentication
In a connectionless transfer, provides assurance that the source of received data is as

claimed.
ACCESS CONTROL
The prevention of unauthorized use of a resource (i.e., this service controls who can have
access to a resource, under what conditions access can occur, and what those accessing
the resource are allowed to do).
DATA CONFIDENTIALITY
The protection of data from unauthorized disclosure.
Connection Confidentiality
The protection of all user data on a connection.
Connectionless Confidentiality
The protection of all user data in a single data block
Selective-Field Confidentiality
AUTHENTICATION
The confidentiality of selected fields within the user data on a connection or in a single
data block.
Traffic Flow Confidentiality
The protection of the information that might be derived from observation of traffic flows.
Connection Integrity with Recovery
Provides for the integrity of all user data on a connection and detects any modification,
insertion, deletion, or replay of any data within an entire data sequence, with recovery
attempted.
Connection Integrity without Recovery
As above, but provides only detection without recovery.

Selective-Field Connection Integrity
Provides for the integrity of selected fields within the user data of a data block
transferred over a connection and takes the form of determination of whether the selected
fields have been modified, inserted, deleted, or replayed.
Connectionless Integrity
Provides for the integrity of a single connectionless data block and may take the form of
detection of data modification. Additionally, a limited form of replay detection may be
provided.
Selective-Field Connectionless Integrity
Provides for the integrity of selected fields within a single connectionless data block;
takes the form of determination of whether the selected fields have been modified.
NONREPUDIATION
Provides protection against denial by one of the entities involved in a communication of

having participated in all or part of the communication.
Nonrepudiation, Origin
Proof that the message was sent by the specified party.
Nonrepudiation, Destination
Proof that the message was received by the specified party.
SECURITY MECHANISMS
One of the most specific security mechanisms in use is cryptographic techniques.
Encryption or encryption-like transformations of information are the most common
means of providing security. Some of the mechanisms are
Encipherment
Digital Signature
Access Control
SECURITY ATTACKS
There are four general categories of attack which are listed below.
Interruption
An asset of the system is destroyed or becomes unavailable or unusable. This is
an attack on availability.
e.g., destruction of piece of hardware, cutting of a communication line or
disabling of file management system.
Interception
An unauthorized party gains access to an asset. This is an attack on

confidentiality. Unauthorized party could be a person, a program or a
computer.e.g., wire tapping to capture data in the network, illicit copying of files
Modification
An unauthorized party not only gains access to but tampers with an asset. This is
an attack on integrity.
e.g., changing values in data file, altering a program, modifying the contents of
messages being transmitted in a network.
Fabrication
An unauthorized party inserts counterfeit objects into the system. This is an attack
on authenticity.
e.g., insertion of spurious message in a network or addition of records to a file.

Passive attack
Passive attacks are in the nature of eavesdropping on, or monitoring of, transmissions.
The goal of the opponent is to obtain information that is being transmitted. Passive
attacks are of two types:
Release of message contents: A telephone conversation, an e-mail message and a

transferred file may contain sensitive or confidential information. We would like
to prevent the opponent from learning the contents of these transmissions.
Traffic analysis: If we had encryption protection in place, an opponent might still

be able to observe the pattern of the message. The opponent could determine the
location and identity of communication hosts and could observe the frequency
and length of messages being exchanged. This information might be useful in
guessing the nature of communication that was taking place.
Passive attacks are very difficult to detect because they do not involve any alteration
of data. However, it is feasible to prevent the success of these attacks.
Active attacks
These attacks involve some modification of the data stream or the creation of a false
stream. These attacks can be classified in to four categories:
Masquerade – One entity pretends to be a different entity.

Replay – involves passive capture of a data unit and its subsequent transmission
to produce an unauthorized effect.
Modification of messages – Some portion of message is altered or the messages
are delayed or recorded, to produce an unauthorized effect.
Denial of service – Prevents or inhibits the normal use or management of
communication facilities. Another form of service denial is the disruption of an
entire network, either by disabling the network or overloading it with messages so
as to degrade performance.
It is quite difficult to prevent active attacks absolutely, because to do so would require
physical protection of all communication facilities and paths at all times. Instead, the goal
is to detect them and to recover from any disruption or delays caused by them.
By,
N. Harismita
16MSS017

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OSI SECURITY ARCHITECTURE – ATTACKS, SERVICES AND

THE OSI SECURITY ARCHITECTURE

A potential for violation of security, which exists when there is a circumstance,

Security Attacks, Services And Mechanisms

Confidentiality: Ensures that the information in a computer system and

Authentication: Ensures that the origin of a message or electronic document is

Integrity: Ensures that only authorized parties are able to modify computer

Access control: Requires that access to information resources may be controlled

Availability: Requires that computer system assets be available to authorized

Peer Entity Authentication

Data Origin Authentication

In a connectionless transfer, provides assurance that the source of received data is as

The protection of data from unauthorized disclosure.

The protection of all user data on a connection.

The protection of all user data in a single data block

Traffic Flow Confidentiality

Connection Integrity with Recovery

Connection Integrity without Recovery

As above, but provides only detection without recovery.

Selective-Field Connectionless Integrity

Provides protection against denial by one of the entities involved in a communication of

Proof that the message was sent by the specified party.

Proof that the message was received by the specified party.

An unauthorized party gains access to an asset. This is an attack on

Release of message contents: A telephone conversation, an e-mail message and a

Traffic analysis: If we had encryption protection in place, an opponent might still

Masquerade – One entity pretends to be a different entity.

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