A Real-time Application Security Analyzer

The Missile Defense Agency (MDA) has employed a number of measures to address the security of applications residing on the Ballistic Missile Defense System (BMDS). While preventative measures may be effective at addressing network security, there is a growing movement to provide added software security measures in the event unauthorized access is gained to BMDS networks. Measures for implementing software security must be examined throughout the software or application design process. To address these challenges, RAM Laboratories is teaming with Auburn University’s Information Assurance Laboratory to develop a Real-time Application Software Analyzer (RASA). This system will provide methods, tools, and libraries for building, interrogating and monitoring real-time software applications at source code and binary code level, in addition to during application execution. The system will have mechanisms that can be employed at the user, kernel, and system level and can be used to address application and system test modes as well as operational modes of execution. The Phase I effort will focus on the research, analysis, and design of RASA and will provide a proof-of-principle demonstration of some of its security mechanisms to illustrate the feasibility of our approach.