Roberto Gorrieri, Ruggero Lanotte, Andrea Maggiolo-Schettini, Fabio Martinelli, Simone Tini, and Enrico Tronci. "Automated analysis of timed security: a case study on web privacy." International Journal of Information Security 2, no. 3-4 (2004): 168–186. DOI: 10.1007/s10207-004-0037-9.
Abstract: This paper presents a case study on an automated analysis of real-time security models. The case study on a web system (originally proposed by Felten and Schneider) is presented that shows a timing attack on the privacy of browser users. Three different approaches are followed: LH-Timed Automata (analyzed using the model checker HyTech), finite-state automata (analyzed using the model checker NuSMV), and process algebras (analyzed using the model checker CWB-NC). A comparative analysis of these three approaches is given.
|
Ruggero Lanotte, Andrea Maggiolo-Schettini, Simone Tini, Angelo Troina, and Enrico Tronci. "Automatic Covert Channel Analysis of a Multilevel Secure Component." In Information and Communications Security, 6th International Conference, ICICS 2004, Malaga, Spain, October 27-29, 2004, Proceedings, edited by J. Lopez, S. Qing and E. Okamoto, 249–261. Lecture Notes in Computer Science 3269. Springer, 2004. DOI: 10.1007/b101042.
Abstract: The NRL Pump protocol defines a multilevel secure component whose goal is to minimize leaks of information from high level systems to lower level systems, without degrading average time performances. We define a probabilistic model for the NRL Pump and show how a probabilistic model checker (FHP-mur$\varphi$) can be used to estimate the capacity of a probabilistic covert channel in the NRL Pump. We are able to compute the probability of a security violation as a function of time for various configurations of the system parameters (e.g. buffer sizes, moving average size, etc). Because of the model complexity, our results cannot be obtained using an analytical approach and, because of the low probabilities involved, it can be hard to obtain them using a simulator.
|
Marco Martinelli, Enrico Tronci, Giovanni Dipoppa, and Claudio Balducelli. "Electric Power System Anomaly Detection Using Neural Networks." In 8th International Conference on: Knowledge-Based Intelligent Information and Engineering Systems (KES), edited by M. G. Negoita, R. J. Howlett and L. C. Jain, 1242–1248. Lecture Notes in Computer Science 3213. Wellington, New Zealand: Springer, 2004. ISSN: 3-540-23318-0. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-540-30132-5_168.
Abstract: The aim of this work is to propose an approach to monitor and protect Electric Power System by learning normal system behaviour at substations level, and raising an alarm signal when an abnormal status is detected; the problem is addressed by the use of autoassociative neural networks, reading substation measures. Experimental results show that, through the proposed approach, neural networks can be used to learn parameters underlaying system behaviour, and their output processed to detecting anomalies due to hijacking of measures, changes in the power network topology (i.e. transmission lines breaking) and unexpected power demand trend.
|
Ruggero Lanotte, Andrea Maggiolo-Schettini, Simone Tini, Angelo Troina, and Enrico Tronci. "Automatic Analysis of the NRL Pump." Electr. Notes Theor. Comput. Sci. 99 (2004): 245–266. DOI: 10.1016/j.entcs.2004.02.011.
Abstract: We define a probabilistic model for the NRL Pump and using FHP-mur$\varphi$ show experimentally that there exists a probabilistic covert channel whose capacity depends on various NRL Pump parameters (e.g. buffer size, number of samples in the moving average, etc).
|
"Charme." In Lecture Notes in Computer Science, edited by D. Geist and E. Tronci. Vol. 2860. Springer, 2003. ISSN: 3-540-20363-X. DOI: 10.1007/b93958.
|
Ester Ciancamerla, Michele Minichino, Stefano Serro, and Enrico Tronci. "Automatic Timeliness Verification of a Public Mobile Network." In 22nd International Conference on Computer Safety, Reliability, and Security (SAFECOMP), edited by S. Anderson, M. Felici and B. Littlewood, 35–48. Lecture Notes in Computer Science 2788. Edinburgh, UK: Springer, 2003. ISSN: 978-3-540-20126-7. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-540-39878-3_4.
Abstract: This paper deals with the automatic verification of the timeliness of Public Mobile Network (PMN), consisting of Mobile Nodes (MNs) and Base Stations (BSs). We use the Mur$\varphi$ Model Checker to verify that the waiting access time of each MN, under different PMN configurations and loads, and different inter arrival times of MNs in a BS cell, is always below a preassigned threshold. Our experimental results show that Model Checking can be successfully used to generate worst case scenarios and nicely complements probabilistic methods and simulation which are typically used for performance evaluation.
|
Giuseppe Della Penna, Benedetto Intrigila, Enrico Tronci, and Marisa Venturini Zilli. "Synchronized regular expressions." Acta Inf. 39, no. 1 (2003): 31–70.
Abstract: Text manipulation is one of the most common tasks for everyone using a computer. The increasing number of textual information in electronic format that every computer user collects everyday also increases the need of more powerful tools to interact with texts. Indeed, much work has been done to provide simple and versatile tools that can be useful for the most common text manipulation tasks. Regular Expressions (RE), introduced by Kleene, are well known in the formal language theory. RE have been extended in various ways, depending on the application of interest. In almost all the implementations of RE search algorithms (e.g. the egrep [15] UNIX command, or the Perl [20] language pattern matching constructs) we find backreferences, i.e. expressions that make reference to the string matched by a previous subexpression. Generally speaking, it seems that all kinds of synchronizations between subexpressions in a RE can be very useful when interacting with texts. In this paper we introduce the Synchronized Regular Expressions (SRE) as an extension of the Regular Expressions. We use SRE to present a formal study of the already known backreferences extension, and of a new extension proposed by us, which we call the synchronized exponents. Moreover, since we are dealing with formalisms that should have a practical utility and be used in real applications, we have the problem of how to present SRE to the final users. Therefore, in this paper we also propose a user-friendly syntax for SRE to be used in implementations of SRE-powered search algorithms.
|
Marco Gribaudo, Andras Horváth, Andrea Bobbio, Enrico Tronci, Ester Ciancamerla, and Michele Minichino. "Fluid Petri Nets and hybrid model checking: a comparative case study." Int. Journal on: Reliability Engineering & System Safety 81, no. 3 (2003): 239–257. Elsevier. DOI: 10.1016/S0951-8320(03)00089-9.
Abstract: The modeling and analysis of hybrid systems is a recent and challenging research area which is actually dominated by two main lines: a functional analysis based on the description of the system in terms of discrete state (hybrid) automata (whose goal is to ascertain conformity and reachability properties), and a stochastic analysis (whose aim is to provide performance and dependability measures). This paper investigates a unifying view between formal methods and stochastic methods by proposing an analysis methodology of hybrid systems based on Fluid Petri Nets (FPNs). FPNs can be analyzed directly using appropriate tools. Our paper shows that the same FPN model can be fed to different functional analyzers for model checking. In order to extensively explore the capability of the technique, we have converted the original FPN into languages for discrete as well as hybrid as well as stochastic model checkers. In this way, a first comparison among the modeling power of well known tools can be carried out. Our approach is illustrated by means of a ââ¬â¢real worldââ¬â¢ hybrid system: the temperature control system of a co-generative plant.
|
Giuseppe Della Penna, Benedetto Intrigila, Enrico Tronci, and Marisa Venturini Zilli. "Exploiting Transition Locality in the Disk Based Mur$\varphi$ Verifier." In 4th International Conference on Formal Methods in Computer-Aided Design (FMCAD), edited by M. Aagaard and J. W. O'Leary, 202–219. Lecture Notes in Computer Science 2517. Portland, OR, USA: Springer, 2002. ISSN: 3-540-00116-6. DOI: 10.1007/3-540-36126-X_13.
Abstract: The main obstruction to automatic verification of Finite State Systems is the huge amount of memory required to complete the verification task (state explosion). This motivates research on distributed as well as disk based verification algorithms. In this paper we present a disk based Breadth First Explicit State Space Exploration algorithm as well as an implementation of it within the Mur$\varphi$ verifier. Our algorithm exploits transition locality (i.e. the statistical fact that most transitions lead to unvisited states or to recently visited states) to decrease disk read accesses thus reducing the time overhead due to disk usage. A disk based verification algorithm for Mur$\varphi$ has been already proposed in the literature. To measure the time speed up due to locality exploitation we compared our algorithm with such previously proposed algorithm. Our experimental results show that our disk based verification algorithm is typically more than 10 times faster than such previously proposed disk based verification algorithm. To measure the time overhead due to disk usage we compared our algorithm with RAM based verification using the (standard) Mur$\varphi$ verifier with enough memory to complete the verification task. Our experimental results show that even when using 1/10 of the RAM needed to complete verification, our disk based algorithm is only between 1.4 and 5.3 times (3 times on average) slower than (RAM) Mur$\varphi$ with enough RAM memory to complete the verification task at hand. Using our disk based Mur$\varphi$ we were able to complete verification of a protocol with about $10^9$ reachable states. This would require more than 5 gigabytes of RAM using RAM based Mur$\varphi$.
|
Marco Gribaudo, Andras Horváth, Andrea Bobbio, Enrico Tronci, Ester Ciancamerla, and Michele Minichino. "Model-Checking Based on Fluid Petri Nets for the Temperature Control System of the ICARO Co-generative Plant." In 21st International Conference on Computer Safety, Reliability and Security (SAFECOMP), edited by S. Anderson, S. Bologna and M. Felici, 273–283. Lecture Notes in Computer Science 2434. Catania, Italy: Springer, 2002. ISSN: 3-540-44157-3. DOI: 10.1007/3-540-45732-1_27.
Abstract: The modeling and analysis of hybrid systems is a recent and challenging research area which is actually dominated by two main lines: a functional analysis based on the description of the system in terms of discrete state (hybrid) automata (whose goal is to ascertain for conformity and reachability properties), and a stochastic analysis (whose aim is to provide performance and dependability measures). This paper investigates a unifying view between formal methods and stochastic methods by proposing an analysis methodology of hybrid systems based on Fluid Petri Nets (FPN). It is shown that the same FPN model can be fed to a functional analyser for model checking as well as to a stochastic analyser for performance evaluation. We illustrate our approach and show its usefulness by applying it to a ââ¬Åreal worldââ¬Â hybrid system: the temperature control system of a co-generative plant.
|