Attributes and Dimensions of Trust in Secure Systems

Abstract

What is it to be trusted? This is an important question as trust is increasingly placed in a system and the degree to which a system is trusted is increasingly being assessed. However, there are issues with how related terms are used. Many definitions focus on one attribute of trust (typically behaviour) preventing that definition from being used for other attributes (e.g., identity). This is confused further by conflating what trustors measure about a trustee and what conclusions a trustor reaches about a trustee. Therefore, in this paper we present definitions of measures (trustiness and trustworthiness) and conclusions (trusted and trustworthy). These definitions are general and do not refer to a specific attribute allowing them to be used with arbitrary attributes which are being assessed (e.g., identity, behaviour, limitation, execution, correctness, data, environment). In addition, in order to demonstrate the complexities of describing if a trustee is designated as trusted or trustworthy, a set of dimensions are defined to describe attributes (time, scale, proactive/reactive, strength, scope, source). Finally, an example system is classified using these attributes and their dimensions in order to highlight the complexities of describing a system as holistically trusted or trustworthy.