Galois is a leader in formal verification, a technique that goes beyond testing and evaluation to provide mathematical assurances that a system works only as intended in all cases. Verifying the correctness of Guardtime's KSI will demonstrate the scalability and practicality of formal verification methods as a means for establishing trust in critical systems.
Integrity monitoring systems like Guardtime's KSI detect evidence of advanced persistent threats (APTs) as they work to remain hidden in networks. APTs undermine the security of networks for long periods of time and have been central in many major network breaches. APTs carefully cover their tracks by removing evidence from system log files, adding information to “white-lists” used by security software, and altering network configurations. This project aims to verify the ability of keyless integrity monitoring systems to detect APTs and attest to the ongoing integrity of a system.
Integrity monitoring systems like Guardtime's KSI detect evidence of advanced persistent threats (APTs) as they work to remain hidden in networks. APTs undermine the security of networks for long periods of time and have been central in many major network breaches. APTs carefully cover their tracks by removing evidence from system log files, adding information to “white-lists” used by security software, and altering network configurations. This project aims to verify the ability of keyless integrity monitoring systems to detect APTs and attest to the ongoing integrity of a system.
“Formal verification has evolved considerably over the past several years, but has only recently matured enough to tackle production-level software,”
said Stephen Magill, Research Lead for Software Analysis at Galois. “This collaborative effort seeks to advance our understanding of the role that integrity analysis plays in system security and lead to improvements in formal verification tools and methods that will be applicable to other existing systems.”
“Guardtime Federal sees this formal verification of blockchain and KSI technology implemented to meet national security challenges as an amazing opportunity for our clients,”
said David Hamilton, President of Guardtime Federal. “By subjecting our cyber defense infrastructure to this most sophisticated methodology we will test both typical and exotic boundary conditions enabling further refinements of our defenses for protecting the most precious national security secrets and configurations of operational systems.”
Data breaches cost the economy billions and affect government and private companies alike. One major factor in the severity of a breach is the length of time that the adversary can operate before being detected, which can often be months as they explore a network and identify the most valuable assets and data.
Technology such as Guardtime’s KSI can be used to ensure intruders are unable to cover their tracks. Formal verification aims to provide mathematically grounded assurance that the KSI system will not be compromised no matter what the intruder does to subvert it. This provides a much stronger level of assurance than conventional testing, which typically only covers non-malicious or randomly generated data.
Data breaches cost the economy billions and affect government and private companies alike. One major factor in the severity of a breach is the length of time that the adversary can operate before being detected, which can often be months as they explore a network and identify the most valuable assets and data.
Technology such as Guardtime’s KSI can be used to ensure intruders are unable to cover their tracks. Formal verification aims to provide mathematically grounded assurance that the KSI system will not be compromised no matter what the intruder does to subvert it. This provides a much stronger level of assurance than conventional testing, which typically only covers non-malicious or randomly generated data.
About Guardtime Federal
'Guardtime Federal (GTF) was established in 2014 to exclusively support the cyber security and related security requirements for US Defense, US Intelligence Community, other US Government departments and the industrial community that supports these US Government capabilities. Guardtime Federal will embrace the stringent federal regulations geared to assure government customers of compliance with US security objectives. This guarantees government customers, and their other enabling Cleared Defense Contractors, issues like FOCI have been successfully mitigated ensuring protection against inappropriate disclosure of export controlled, OPSEC sensitive and classified information.