Title: An approach to synthesise safe systems

Authors: Arshad Jhumka, Felix Freiling, Christof Fetzer, Neeraj Suri

Addresses: Department of Computer Science, University of Warwick, UK. ' Department of Computer Science, University of Mannheim, Germany. ' Department of Computer Science, TU Dresden, Germany. ' Department of Computer Science, TU Darmstadt, Germany

Abstract: Detectors are system components that identify whether the system is in a particular state. Detectors can be used to ensure arbitrary safety properties for systems, hat is, they can be used to prevent the system from reaching a |bad| state. Detectors have found application in the area of fault-tolerant systems but can also be used in the area of security. We present here a theory of detectors that identifies the class of perfect detectors and explains their importance for fault-tolerant systems. Based on the theory, we develop an algorithm that automatically transforms a fault-intolerant program into a fault-tolerant program that satisfies its safety property even in the presence of faults. We further show how to use some of the results for adding security properties to a given insecure program. We provide examples to show the applicability of our approach.

Keywords: safe systems; formal methods; security; reliability; program transformation; detectors; fault-tolerant systems; networks; synthesis; detection capabilities.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSN.2006.010824

International Journal of Security and Networks, 2006 Vol.1 No.1/2, pp.62 - 74

Published online: 06 Sep 2006 *

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