Comparison of Adaptive Information Security Approaches

Table 6

Comparison of approaches.

Security adaptation approach	(1) An architectural approach for self-managing security services	(2) A software framework for autonomic security in pervasive environments	(3) Context sensitive adaptive authentication	(4) Adaptive messaging middleware	(5) Adaptive security architecture based on EC-MQV algorithm in personal networks
Adaptation viewpoint
Object to adapt	Generic approach	Generic approach	Authentication mechanism	Generic approach	Key agreement algorithm
Adaptation timing	Runtime, reactive, and proactive	Runtime and reactive	Runtime and reactive	Runtime, reactive, and proactive	Start-up
Monitor and analyses	Monitoring and analysing composed inside the Context subsystem by means of dedicated services for trust level, threat level, availability, memory usage, and bandwidth usage. The internal design of services is not described.	Monitors: beforehand defined security events.; Analyses: decides to reconfigure based on monitored events. How a decision is made is not described.	Monitors: location of user’s devices and timestamps.; Analyses: ULPC partially analyses monitoring results by means of the developed fusion algorithms. The application has to conclude the current authentication level.	Monitoring: security measuring is the most emphasised form of monitoring.; Analyses: the separated component composes the monitoring results to the higher level. The internal design of this component is not described.	Monitors location and device capabilities.; Analyses: beforehand analysed.
Planning and execution	Planning: static planning by the means of ECSA policies.; Execution: ECSA Policy manager enforces beforehand defined actions.	Planning: in high level; Execution: —	Planning: —; Execution: —	Planning and execution are composed into the one phase called Adapt. However, the content of this phase is not described.	Planning: static planning, that is, beforehand defined actions for different locations.; Execution: beginning of each communication session.
Knowledge	Inside the monitoring services and ECSA policies.	Profile database (content is not described)	—	Adaptive database (content is not described)	—
Self-properties	Self-configuration, optimization, and protection.; Context-awareness	Self-configuration, optimization, and protection.; Context-awareness	Self-configuration.; Context-awareness	Self-configuration, optimization, protection, and healing.	Context-awareness
Security viewpoint
Mechanisms	Generic approach	Generic approach	Authentication mechanism	Generic approach	Key agreement algorithm
Attributes	Generic approach	Generic approach	Authentication	Generic approach	Confidentiality and integrity
Protected asset	Generic approach	Generic approach	User’s identity	Generic approach	Data in communication channel
Threats	Generic approach	Generic approach	Identity theft	Generic approach	Threats for the communication confidentiality and integrity.
Lifecycle viewpoint
Architecture	Structure is described. Middleware under the application layer contains elements for adaptation.; Behaviour is not described.	Structure and behaviour of the approach are described. Separated components for monitoring, analysing, and responding.	Structure and behaviour of the approach are described.; Separated components for monitoring and analysing.	Structure is described. The ASM component performs all adaptation tasks. The component contains monitor, analyse, and adaptation parts.; Behaviour is not described.	Structure is described. Layer between application and security protocol.
Extensibility	Completely	Completely	No	Partially	Partially
Flexibility	Easy	Easy	Hard	Moderate	Easy
Reusability	It is possible to reuse the whole approach or individual components.	It is possible to reuse the whole approach or individual components.	It is possible to reuse the whole approach. Individual components can be also reused, but the functionality is strongly related to this approach.	Reusing the whole adaptation approach requires that the GEMOM middleware is utilised as a whole, which causes additional work. Reusing individual monitoring (measuring) parts will be easy.	CaSM component can be reused. It is notable that the component is intended for the start-up phase adaptations.
Maturity	Validation No; Guidelines No; Community No	Validation No; Guidelines No; Community No	Validation Yes; Guidelines partially Yes^a; Community No	Validation Yes; Guidelines No; Community No	Validation No; Guidelines No; Community No

^aSeparated guidelines are not available. However, the existing papers describe the monitored attributes and the fusion algorithm in detail, and thus these can be implemented by means of this input.