Cloud Security Feature Scoring for Exploitability Assessment
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing cloud computing environments lack nuanced methods to quantify the satisfaction of security features beyond simple Boolean values, making it difficult for clients to verify and ensure that security mechanisms meet their non-functional requirements, and traditional risk assessments provide limited insights into the effectiveness of security solutions.
Innovation Solution
A method and system that characterize security features, match them to security metrics, and compute a quantification score indicating exploitability, using entailment relationships and vulnerability, attack, and defense metrics to provide a continuous scale of satisfaction, enabling systematic resource allocation and effective security solution design.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If traditional Boolean assessment is used to evaluate security features, then the assessment process is simple and fast, but the measurement precision is insufficient and cannot provide nuanced satisfaction levels
Solution Approach 1:
The patent transforms the security feature satisfaction assessment from a Boolean parameter (satisfied/not satisfied) to a continuous quantitative parameter (satisfaction score between 0 and 1). This parameter change enables nuanced measurement of security feature satisfaction by computing quantification scores based on vulnerability metrics, attack metrics, and defense metrics, thereby resolving the contradiction between measurement precision and system complexity.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces security metrics as intermediary elements that bridge the gap between security features and their satisfaction levels. By matching security features to specific security metrics and using these metrics to compute quantification scores, the system achieves precise measurement without requiring direct complex analysis of every security aspect, thus balancing measurement precision with manageable system complexity.
2Measurement precision
If detailed security analysis is performed to achieve precise quantification, then the measurement precision improves, but the computational complexity and time required increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the security assessment process into distinct components: vulnerability analysis, attack analysis, and defense analysis. Each component is evaluated separately using specific metrics, and the results are combined to compute the overall quantification score. This segmentation enables precise measurement while managing computational complexity by breaking down the analysis into manageable, independent tasks that can be processed efficiently.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent computes quantification scores for individual security features rather than performing exhaustive analysis of the entire security system at once. By focusing on partial assessment of specific security features and their associated metrics, the system achieves precise quantification for targeted areas without the prohibitive computational cost of complete system analysis, thereby reducing time loss while maintaining measurement precision.
3Reliability
If multiple security metrics are used to compute quantification scores, then the reliability of security assessment improves, but the device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent creates a universal framework where multiple security metrics can be applied across different security features through a common matching process. The same quantification methodology and score computation approach are used regardless of which specific security features are being assessed, enabling reliable and consistent evaluation while avoiding the need for separate complex analysis systems for each metric, thus improving reliability without proportionally increasing device complexity.
Data Source
AI summary
A method of quantifying the satisfaction of security requirements is provided via characterizing a security feature; matching the security feature to a security metric; computing a quantification score that indicates the exploitability of a system to which the security feature is applied; and outputting the quantification score to a security analyst.