Section 20.3. Common Criteria for Information Technology Security Evaluation


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20.3. Common Criteria for Information Technology Security Evaluation

The work done by the National Security Agency and other U.S. government agencies to develop requirements and evaluation criteria for trusted systems is mirrored by similar work in other countries. The Common Criteria (CC) for Information Technology and Security Evaluation is an international initiative by standards bodies in a number of countries to develop international standards for specifying security requirements and defining evaluation criteria.

Requirements

The CC defines a common set of potential security requirements for use in evaluation. The term target of evaluation (TOE) refers to that part of the product or system that is subject to evaluation. The requirements fall in two categories:

  • Functional requirements: Define desired security behavior. CC documents establish a set of security functional components that provide a standard way of expressing the security functional requirements for a TOE.

  • Assurance requirements: The basis for gaining confidence that the claimed security measures are effective and implemented correctly. CC documents establish a set of assurance components that provide a standard way of expressing the assurance requirements for a TOE.

Both functional requirements and assurance requirements are organized into classes: A class is a collection of requirements that share a common focus or intent. Tables 20.3 and 20.4 briefly define the requirements classes for functional and assurance requirements. Each of these classes contains a number of families. The requirements within each family share security objectives, but differ in emphasis or rigor. For example, the audit class contains six families dealing with various aspects of auditing (e.g., audit data generation, audit analysis, and audit event storage). Each family, in turn, contains one or more components. A component describes a specific set of security requirements and is the smallest selectable set of security requirements for inclusion in the structures defined in the CC.

Table 20.3. CC Security Functional Requirements
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Class

Description

Audit

Involves recognizing, recording, storing and analyzing information related to security activities. Audit records are produced by these activities, and can be examined to determine their security relevance.

Cryptographic support

Used when the TOE implements cryptographic functions. These may be used, for example, to support communications, identification and authentication, or data separation.

Communications

Provides two families concerned with non-repudiation by the originator and by the recipient of data.

User data protection

Specifying requirements relating to the protection of user data within the TOE during import, export and storage, in addition to security attributes related to user data.

Identification and authentication

Ensure the unambiguous identification of authorized users and the correct association of security attributes with users and subjects.

Security management

Specifies the management of security attributes, data and functions.

Privacy

Provides a user with protection against discovery and misuse of his or her identity by other users.

Protection of the TOE security functions

Focused on protection of TSF (TOE security functions) data, rather than of user data. The class relates to the integrity and management of the TSF mechanisms and data.

Resource utilization

Supports the availability of required resources, such as processing capability and storage capacity. Includes requirements for fault tolerance, priority of service and resource allocation.

TOE access

Specifies functional requirements, in addition to those specified for identification and authentication, for controlling the establishment of a user's session. The requirements for TOE access govern such things as limiting the number and scope of user sessions, displaying the access history and the modification of access parameters.

Trusted path/channels

Concerned with trusted communications paths between the users and the TSF, and between TSFs.


Table 20.4. CC Security Assurance Requirements
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Class

Description

Configuration management

Requires that the integrity of the TOE is adequately preserved. Specifically, configuration management provides confidence that the TOE and documentation used for evaluation are the ones prepared for distribution.

Delivery and operation

Concerned with the measures, procedures and standards for secure delivery, installation and operational use of the TOE, to ensure that the security protection offered by the TOE is not compromised during these events.

Development

Concerned with the refinement of the TSF from the specification defined in the ST to the implementation, and a mapping from the security requirements to the lowest level representation.

Guidance documents

Concerned with the secure operational use of the TOE, by the users and administrators.

Life cycle support

Concerned with the life-cycle of the TOE include lifecycle definition, tools and techniques, security of the development environment and the remediation of flaws found by TOE consumers.

Tests

Concerned with demonstrating that the TOE meets its functional requirements. The families address coverage and depth of developer testing, and requirements for independent testing.

Vulnerability assessment

Defines requirements directed at the identification of exploitable vulnerabilities, which could be introduced by construction, operation, misuse or incorrect configuration of the TOE. The families identified here are concerned with identifying vulnerabilities through covert channel analysis, analysis of the configuration of the TOE, examining the strength of mechanisms of the security functions, and identifying flaws introduced during development of the TOE. The second family covers the security categorization of TOE components. The third and fourth cover the analysis of changes for security impact, and the provision of evidence that procedures are being followed. This class provides building blocks for the establishment of assurance maintenance schemes.

Assurance maintenance

Provides requirements that are intended to be applied after a TOE has been certified against the CC. These requirements are aimed at assuring that the TOE will continue to meet its security target as changes are made to the TOE or its environment.


For example, the cryptographic support class of functional requirements includes two families: cryptographic key management and cryptographic operation. There are four components under the cryptographic key management family, which are used to specify: key generation algorithm and key size; key distribution method; key access method; and key destruction method. For each component, a standard may be referenced to define the requirement. Under the cryptographic operation family, there is a single component, which specifies an algorithm and key size based on a an assigned standard.

Sets of functional and assurance components may be grouped together into re-usable packages, which are known to be useful in meeting identified objectives. An example of such a package would be functional components required for Discretionary Access Controls.


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Profiles and Targets

The CC also defines two kinds of documents that can be generated using the CC-defined requirements.

  • Protection profiles (PPs): Define an implementation-independent set of security requirements and objectives for a category of products or systems that meet similar consumer needs for IT security. A PP is intended to be reusable and to define requirements that are known to be useful and effective in meeting the identified objectives. The PP concept has been developed to support the definition of functional standards, and as an aid to formulating procurement specifications. The PP reflects user security requirements

  • Security targets (STs): Contain the IT security objectives and requirements of a specific identified TOE and defines the functional and assurance measures offered by that TOE to meet stated requirements. The ST may claim conformance to one or more PPs, and forms the basis for an evaluation. The ST is supplied by a vendor or developer.


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Figure 20.6 illustrates the relationship between requirements on the one hand and profiles and targets on the other. For a PP, a user can select a number of components to define the requirements for the desired product. The user may also refer to predefined packages that assemble a number of requirements commonly grouped together within a product requirements document. Similarly, a vendor or designer can select a number of components and packages to define an ST.

Figure 20.6. Organization and Construction of Common Criteria Requirements
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Figure 20.7 shows what is referred to in the CC documents as the security functional requirements paradigm. In essence, this illustration is based on the reference monitor concept but makes use of the terminology and design philosophy of the CC.


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Figure 20.7. Security Functional Requirements Paradigm





Cryptography and Network Security Principles and Practices
Cryptography and Network Security (4th Edition)
ISBN: 0131873164
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2005
Pages: 209

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