Multi-layered Graph Modeling for Cloud Security Risk Assessment
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional security risk assessment methods struggle to analyze the complex security aspects of cloud infrastructure, which has numerous potential attack surfaces due to its multifaceted services, and often separate the analysis of hardware and software components, failing to effectively address the intersection of hardware and software supply chain security.
Innovation Solution
A multi-layered graph modeling approach is employed to identify and analyze hardware and software components, generating a graph that represents interactions between them, allowing for the quantification of security risks and the identification of vulnerabilities and countermeasures, thereby bridging the gap between slow-changing hardware and quickly evolving software.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If conventional security risk assessment methods are used to analyze cloud infrastructure, then the analysis process is simple and straightforward, but the ability to comprehensively analyze security aspects of complex hardware and software interactions is insufficient
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the security risk assessment into multiple layers: hardware layer, software layer, and interaction layer. Each layer is analyzed separately using graph models, then integrated to provide comprehensive security assessment. This segmentation allows precise analysis of hardware-software interactions without overwhelming complexity.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces a multi-dimensional graph model that adds temporal and interaction dimensions to traditional security assessment. The graph model represents hardware components, software components, and their interactions as nodes and edges, enabling comprehensive analysis of security risks across different dimensions simultaneously.
2Ease of operation
If hardware and software security are analyzed separately, then each analysis is focused and manageable, but the intersection and interplay of hardware and software supply chain security is not effectively addressed
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges separate hardware and software security analyses by creating an integrated graph model that includes both hardware components and software components as nodes, with edges representing their interactions. This merging preserves the manageability of separate analyses while capturing the critical hardware-software interaction security information that would be lost in isolated analyses.
Solution Approach 2:
The graph model serves as an intermediary structure that connects hardware and software security analyses. The model includes interaction layers that mediate between hardware layer and software layer, enabling the capture and analysis of hardware-software interaction security risks while maintaining the organizational structure of separate analyses.
3Reliability
If a comprehensive multi-layered graph model is created to analyze hardware and software interactions, then security risk assessment comprehensiveness is improved, but the complexity of generating and analyzing the graph increases
Solution Approach 1:
The comprehensive graph model is segmented into distinct layers (hardware layer, software layer, interaction layer) that can be generated and analyzed separately. This segmentation reduces the complexity of generating the complete model while maintaining reliability by ensuring each layer is thoroughly analyzed before integration.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent uses dimensional organization of the graph model where each layer represents a different dimension of the system. This dimensional structure allows complex hardware-software interactions to be analyzed systematically by examining relationships within and across dimensions, improving reliability without overwhelming complexity.
Data Source
AI summary
One embodiment of the invention provides a method comprising identifying hardware and software components of a system architecture, and generating a multi-layered graph based on the hardware and software components. The multi-layered graph includes a hardware layer representing a lowest level of hardware architecture of the system architecture. The method further comprises extracting one or more properties of the multi-layered graph, computing one or more security metrics based on the one or more properties, and quantifying a security risk of the system architecture based on the one or more security metrics.