A STUDY OF SECURITY APPROACHES FOR

THE DEVELOPMENT OF MOBILE GRID SYSTEMS

David G. Rosado, Eduardo Fernández-Medina

University of Castilla-La Mancha, GSyA Research Group-Information Systems and Technologies Institute

Escuela Superior de Informática, Paseo de la Universidad 4, 13071 Ciudad Real, Spain

Javier López

University of Málaga, Computer Science Department, Málaga, Spain

Keywords: Secure Software Development, Security, Mobile Grid Computing, Security Architectures.

Abstract: Mobile Grid systems allow us to build highly complex information systems with various and remarkable

features (interoperability between multiple security domains, cross-domain authentication and authorization,

dynamic, heterogeneous and limited mobile devices, etc), which demand secure development

methodologies to build quality software, offering methods, techniques and tools that facilitate the work of

the entire team involved in software development. These methodologies should be supported by Grid

security architectures that define the main security aspects to be considered, and by solutions to the problem

of how to integrate mobile devices within Grid systems. Some approaches regarding secure development

methodologies of Grid security architectures and of the integration of mobile devices in the Grid have been

found in literature, and these are analyzed and studied in this paper, offering a comparison framework of all

the approaches related to security in Mobile Grid environments.

1 INTRODUCTION

The growing need to construct secure systems, has

encouraged the scientific community to demand a

clear integration of security into the development

processes (Jurjens 2001; Flechais, Sasse et al. 2003;

Steel, Nagappan et al. 2005). However, generic

software development methodologies are not

appropriate for the development of every kind of

software system. For instance, generic development

processes are sometimes used to develop Grid

specific systems (Foster, Kesselman et al. 1998;

Welch, Siebenlist et al. 2003) without taking into

consideration either the subjacent technological

environment or the special features and

particularities of these specific systems. In fact, the

majority of existing Grid applications have been

built without a systematic development process and

are based on ad-hoc developments (Dail, Sievert et

al. 2004; Kolonay and Sobolewski 2004).

The development of wireless technology and

mobile devices currently enables us to access the

network service from anywhere at any time (Bruneo,

Scarpa et al. 2003). Provided that mobile devices

have limited computing capacity, the Grid becomes

an important computation service provider that

enables mobile users to perform complicated jobs

(Trung, Moon et al. 2005). This, however, comes at

a price. Mobile computing with networked

information systems increases the risks to sensitive

information supporting critical functions in the

organization which are open to attacks (Talukder

and Yavagal 2006; Weippl, Holzinger et al. 2006).

Grid Security is hard to achieve as the resources

are dynamic, heterogeneous, geographically located

and under the control of multiple administrative

domains (Sastry, Krishnan et al. 2007; Bhanwar and

Bawa 2008). Furthermore, security in the mobile

platform is even more critical owing to the open

nature of wireless networks. A Grid infrastructure

that supports the participation of mobile nodes will

thus play a significant role in the development of

Grid computing.

In this paper, we will carry out a systematic

review (Kitchenham 2007) of the existing literature

about different approaches related to the secure

133

Rosado D., Fernández-Medina E. and Lopez J. (2010).

A STUDY OF SECURITY APPROACHES FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF MOBILE GRID SYSTEMS.

In Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Software and Data Technologies, pages 133-138

DOI: 10.5220/0003005201330138

 SciTePress

development of Mobile Grid systems, beginning

with security approaches for development

methodologies in information systems, and by

studying whether these methodologies can be used

to build mobile Grid systems. We also analyze

several Grid security architectures found in literature

which take into account specific security aspects for

this kind of systems. Finally, we study some

approaches related to how to incorporate mobile

devices into an existent Grid infrastructure and the

difficulties encountered when attempting to do so.

The remainder of the paper is organized as

follows: In section 2, we shall analyze the different

approaches studied that we believe to be most

important for our comparison. In Section 3, we shall

present a comparison between all the approaches

related to security in the Mobile Grid and, finally,

we shall show our conclusions.

2 ANALYZING APPROACHES

In this section we analyze the different approaches

related to security in Mobile Grid environments. The

set of approaches selected has been divided into

three topics: 1) security approaches in development

methodologies; 2) Security architecture for Grid

environments, and 3) the incorporation of mobile

devices into the Grid.

2.1 Secure Development Methodologies

2.1.1 Secure Unified Process

The Secure Unified Process (Steel, Nagappan et al.

2005) is a methodology for the integration of

security into software systems, and is based in the

Unified Process (Kruchten 2000). For the authors,

security is represented as a set of features that

fortifies the entire application or service with

safeguards and countermeasures for potential risks

and vulnerabilities.

2.1.2 Secure Tropos

Tropos (Bresciani, Giorgini et al. 2004) is an agent

oriented software engineering methodology. Secure

Tropos is a security oriented extension (Giorgini,

Mouratidis et al. 2007) which includes security

related concepts such as a security constraint which

is defined as a restriction related to security issues,

such as privacy, integrity and availability, which

may influence the analysis and design of the

information system under development.

2.1.3 UMLSec

UMLsec (Jurjens 2001) is proposed as an extension

of UML for modelling the security properties of

computer systems, according to suggestions made in

(Devanbu and Stubblebine 2000). UMLsec uses

standard extension mechanisms to introduce new

semantics into UML models but only addresses a

few specific security requirements.

2.1.4 AEGIS

AEGIS (Appropriate and Effective Guidance for

Information Security) (Flechais, Sasse et al. 2003),

is a secure software engineering method that

integrates security requirements elicitation, risk

analysis and context of use, bound together through

the use of UML.

2.2 Grid Security Architectures

2.2.1 OGSA Security

The Open Grid Services Architecture (OGSA)

(Open Grid Forum 2006) is a service-oriented

architecture (SOA) that represents an evolution

towards a Grid system architecture based on Web

service concepts and technologies, autonomic

computing principles, and open standards for

integration and interoperability (Foster, Kesselman

et al. 2002).

2.2.2 Grid Security Infrastructure - GSI

The Grid security infrastructure (GSI) was

implemented as a Globus Toolkit component

providing security mechanisms. The GSI has

emerged as an essential middleware component that

has been integrated into many tools.

2.2.3 EGEE Security

The Enabling Grids for E-sciencE (EGEE) project is

funded by the European Commission and aims to

build on recent advances in grid technology and

develop a service grid infrastructure which is

available to scientists 24 hours-a-day. The security

architecture inherits many of the thoughts from

previous projects and parallel ongoing efforts.

2.2.4 EGA Security

The EGA reference model defines an Enterprise

Grid as being a collection of interconnected

(networked) grid components under the control of a

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grid management entity (Enterprise Grid Alliance

Security Working Group 2005). Components have

security properties and attributes, and may define

specific dependencies that can be used to support the

enforcement of security policies and to ensure

minimal exposure.

2.2.5 Legion Security

The Legion project, developed at the University of

Virginia, is an attempt to provide GRID services that

create the illusion of a virtual machine (Foster and

Kesselman 2004). The primary goal of the Legion

security architecture is to enable participants in a

GRID system to expose their resources in a manner

compliant with their local policies (Ferrari 1998;

Chapin, Wang et al. 1999).

2.2.6 Globe Security

Globe (Global Object Based Environment) is a wide

area distributed system which was developed in

order to constitute a middleware level between the

operating system and the application level (van

Steen, Homburg et al. 1999).

2.3 Mobile Devices in the Grid

2.3.1 Leech Approach

The authors of this approach (Phan, Huang et al.

2005)

consider grid and cluster computing from a

different architectural perspective, namely from the

viewpoint of using small-scale, highly

heterogeneous devices that can serve as nodes within

a distributed grid system.

2.3.2 Mobile-to-Grid Middleware Approach

The authors present an architecture (Sajjad, Jameel

et al. 2005) for a middleware enabling

heterogeneous mobile devices to access Grid

services by providing support to the delegation of

jobs to the Grid, secure communication between the

client and the Grid, offline processing and

adaptation to network connectivity issues.

2.3.3 Mobile OGSI.Net Approach

The authors of this proposal investigate the use of

Microsoft .NET Compact Framework and study

Mobile OGSI.NET (Chu and Humphrey 2004)

which is an implementation of the OGSI.NET

implementation for mobile devices. The aim is to

bring the benefits of Grid computing to mobile users

while addressing resource limitations and

intermittent network connectivity.

2.3.4 Grid-m Approach

Grid-M (Platform for Lightweight Grid Computing)

(Hans A. Franke, Fernando L. Koch et al. 2007) is a

platform for building Grid Computing applications

in embedded and mobile computing devices. It

provides the Application Programming Interface

(API) to connect Java-developed applications in a

Grid Computing environment and its runtime profile

is small enough to be used in Mobile Computing

applications.

3 COMPARISON FRAMEWORK

These approaches concerning Security in the Mobile

Grid have been compared by considering a set of

criteria related to different aspects of the secure

development of mobile Grid systems that we believe

must be studied in each approach if we are to

analyze them in depth and compare whether they

fulfil certain security objectives in mobile Grid

environments. Therefore, criteria such as “grid

security requirements”, “based on grid computing”

and “based on mobile devices”, indicate the

incorporation of aspects related to the mobile Grid.

Criteria such as “UML support”, support tools and

practice cases refer to elements which help us to

apply and understand the approaches. “Reusability”

and “scalability” are desirable properties in Grid

systems. Criteria such as “grid and mobile security

considerations”, and “support security policies” are

considered because they indicate the security level

defined both for the grid and mobile environments

of each approach and the security policy

management supported. Criteria such as “grid and

mobile technology” indicate if the current grid and

mobile technologies have been used in the

implementation of the approaches. Finally,

“intermediates” and “standards” are criteria which

indicate types of solutions applied to achieve

security in the approaches.

We define these comparison criteria as follows:

 Grid Security Requirements (GSR): this

indicates the set of security requirements to take

into account in any Grid system such as

delegation, trust, access control, global/local

policies, authentication, single sign-on, etc.

 Based on Grid computing (BGC): this indicates

the adaptation of the specific characteristics of

A STUDY OF SECURITY APPROACHES FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF MOBILE GRID SYSTEMS

135

Grid computing such as anonymity, mobility,

offline processing, etc.

 Based on Mobile Devices (BMD): this indicates

the adaptation of the specific characteristics and

limitations of the mobile devices.

 UML Support (UML): this deals with the

utilization of UML models which may help us to

define and design many aspects of the

approaches.

 Support Tools (ST): this deals with the available

tools defined to help us to apply techniques,

methods and mechanisms.

 Practice Cases (PC): this indicates examples and

study cases of how to apply the solutions

proposed to obtain a validation of the approach.

 Reusability (REU): this deals with the reuse

property of components which improve the end

product and reduce time and effort.

 Intermediate (Proxy/Middleware) (INT): this

deals with the availability of intermediates, both

hardware and software, which complete and

execute part of the work, providing a solution to

a particular problem.

 Security Considerations (SC): this indicates that

security considerations, specifications and

features have been considered and taken into

account such as PKI, encryption, flexible

credentials format, secure communication,

identity/keys management, security protocols

and policies, etc.

 Grid and mobile technologies (GMT): this

indicates that the current technologies for Grid

and mobile computing are taken into account

such as WTLS, IPSec, TLS, WEP, AES, RSA,

ECC, and so on.

 Use of Standards (UST): this indicates the

utilization of standards in the definition and

implementation of methods, techniques and

mechanisms which offer solutions to security

problems.

 Security Policy Support (SPS): this indicates that

security policies have been taken into account

and are managed, controlled, defined and

updated between the different Grid domains.

 Scalability (SCA): this deals with the scalability

property of the solutions presented in the case of

adding new elements, or the modification of

existent ones.

Table 1 summarizes the main features of the

proposals discussed in this paper. The values “Y”,

“N” and “~” indicate respectively that the criteria

involved: are taken into account in the approach, are

not taken into account in the approach, and are

partially taken into account in the approach.

“Partially taken into account” means that the criteria

are not considered as a whole in the approach, and

only one part or set is fulfilled.

Secure Unified Process uses UML to describe

and specify the result models of each task or

activity, and Secure Tropos is a agent oriented

methodology in which security aspects are

incorporated into the Tropos methodology but these

approaches are not related to Grid environments and

mobile devices.

UMLsec incorporates security properties into the

UML model. This approach was not developed for

mobile Grid environments but it is possible to model

certain security aspects which are common to many

systems, including mobile Grid systems. AEGIS is

the only approach found in which the authors

attempt to apply the methodology to Grid systems,

although they do not explain how to do this, and do

not define guides and practices for capturing specific

security aspects in Grid systems.

OGSA represents an evolution towards a Grid

system architecture based on Web Service concepts

and but the lack of support for mobile devices,

including security aspects, makes this incomplete for

mobile Grid systems. GSI offers solutions for Grid

environments in which mobile devices are not

considered, and this proposal does not offer

solutions for the risk and possible attacks that appear

in mobile computing. EGEE Security defines

practice cases and tools which help to build the

middleware and build applications based on Grid

computing, and which use Web service standards.

EGA Security defines a grid management entity

which manages a set of security functions and

policies for Enterprise Grid to establish a secure

connection with the grid components that participate

in the system. These two approaches do not consider

mobile components in the grid and consequently do

not consider mobile security aspects. Legion

Security defines a set of security mechanisms and

policies to enable participants in a Grid system to

expose their resources in a manner which is

compliant with their local policies. This approach

does not consider the security of mobile participants

with mobile devices and a wireless network. The

security considerations for Grid systems presented in

Globe Security approach coincide with the security

considerations for distributed systems, but are not

exclusive to Grid environments. Mobile computing

aspects are not taken into account.

Leech takes into account security aspects for

wireless network and mobile devices through the

proxy which must additionally be protected to

safeguard Grid systems with mobile devices.

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Table 1: Comparison framework of the analyzed approaches.

Approaches/Criteria GS

BGC BMD

REU INT SC GMT UST SPS SCA

SUP N N N Y N N Y N N N Y N Y

Secure Tropos N N N N Y Y N N N N N N N

UMLSec N N N Y Y Y N N ~ N Y N Y

AEGIS N Y N Y Y Y Y N ~ N Y N N

OGSA Y Y N N Y Y Y ~ Y N Y Y Y

GSI ~ Y N N Y Y Y ~ Y Y Y Y N

EGEE Security Y Y N N Y Y N N Y ~ Y Y Y

EGA Security N Y N N Y N N N Y ~ Y Y N

Legion Security ~ Y N N N Y N ~ N ~ Y Y Y

Globe Security N ~ N N Y Y N N ~ Y N N Y

Leech N Y Y N Y N N Y Y Y Y N Y

Mobile-To-Grid N Y Y N N N Y Y Y Y Y Y Y

Mobile OGSI.net N Y Y N Y N Y Y N Y Y N Y

Grid-M N Y Y N Y N Y Y Y Y Y N Y

Mobile-To-Grid contains security services, based on

GSI, that permit the secure communication between

the mobile user, the middleware and the Grid. This

approach treats mobile devices like external

elements and the security must be implemented

outside the Grid environment. Mobile OGSI.net

extends an implementation of grid computing,

OGSI.NET, to mobile devices. This approach does

not specify security aspects for these environments,

and only defines connection modules between Grid

services and mobile services. Grid-M defines new

functionalities of security for mobile devices and

uses an API to connect applications in Grid

environments and mobile devices; however, the

security of this API is not within the Grid security

environment and may cause risks and vulnerabilities

in the system.

4 CONCLUSIONS

With regard to the proposals discussed in this paper,

we can conclude that no proposal covers all the

security criteria for building mobile Grid Systems.

As regards the various security methodologies

proposed, we can see that none of them, with the

exception of the AEGIS approach, is designed to

build Mobile Grid Systems.

Many proposals for Grid system security

architectures and scalable approaches which use

standards for their implementation also exist, but

these offer no solutions to the incorporation of

mobile devices or consider the security aspects that

are so important in mobile computing. Finally,

various proposals concerning the incorporation of

mobile devices into Grid systems exist, but this

incorporation takes place outside the Grid through

intermediaries. These approaches do not regard

mobile devices as being part of the Grid’s own

resources.

We can therefore conclude that there is a need

for an integration element in which a systematic

development process is defined that is capable of

analyzing the security requirements and necessities

for Grid systems with mobile devices from the first

stages of development. It is necessary to design a

reference security architecture for the Mobile Grid

which is reusable and scalable and can be

incorporated into any development, offering

guidelines, methods and mechanisms to protect this

type of systems, and in which the mobile devices are

treated as resources of the Grid environment itself,

and not as external elements incorporated by

intermediaries.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This research is part of the following projects:

QUASIMODO (PAC08-0157-0668), SISTEMAS

(PII2I09-0150-3135) and SEGMENT (HITO-09-

138) financed by the “Viceconsejería de Ciencia y

Tecnología de la Junta de Comunidades de Castilla-

La Mancha” (Spain) and FEDER, and MEDUSAS

(IDI-20090557) and BUSINESS (PET2008-0136)

financed by the "Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación

(CDTI)” (Spain).

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137

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