Formal security analysis of electronic software distribution systems

Abstract

Software distribution to target devices like factory controllers, medical instruments, vehicles or airplanes is increasingly performed electronically over insecure networks. Such software often implements vital functionality, and so the software distribution process can be highly critical, both from the safety and the security perspective. In this paper, we introduce a novel software distribution system architecture with a generic core component, such that the overall software transport from the supplier to the target device is an interaction of several instances of this core component communicating over insecure networks. The main advantage of this architecture is reduction of development and certification costs. The second contribution of this paper describes the validation and verification of the proposed system. We use a mix of formal methods, more precisely the AVISPA tool, and the Common Criteria (CC) methodology, to achieve high confidence in the security of the software distribution system at moderate costs. © 2008 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.