[Paper Review] Evaluating the Exploitability of Implicit Interactions in Distributed Systems

Jason Jaskolka|arXiv (Cornell University)|Jun 10, 2020

Distributed systems and fault tolerance11 references4 citations

TL;DR

This paper proposes a systematic method to evaluate the exploitability of implicit interactions—unintended or unforeseen component interactions—in distributed systems using Communicating Concurrent Kleene Algebra (C²KA). By analyzing agent influence and response, it identifies attack scenarios and introduces a formal exploitability measure, enabling early detection and mitigation of cybersecurity vulnerabilities during system design, with a prototype tool demonstrating practical feasibility for improving system resilience and security.

ABSTRACT

Implicit interactions refer to those interactions among the components of a system that may be unintended and/or unforeseen by the system designers. As such, they represent cybersecurity vulnerabilities that can be exploited to mount cyber-attacks causing serious and destabilizing system effects. In this paper, we study implicit interactions in distributed systems specified using the algebraic modeling framework known as Communicating Concurrent Kleene Algebra (C$^2$KA). To identify and defend against a range of possible attack scenarios, we develop a new measure of exploitability for implicit interactions to aid in evaluating the threat posed by the existence of such vulnerabilities in system designs for launching cyber-attacks. The presented approach is based on the modeling and analysis of the influence and response of the system agents and their C$^2$KA specifications. We also demonstrate the applicability of the proposed approach using a prototype tool that supports the automated analysis. The rigorous, practical techniques presented here enable cybersecurity vulnerabilities in the designs of distributed systems to be more easily identified, assessed, and then mitigated, offering significant improvements to overall system resilience, dependability, and security.

Motivation & Objective

• To address the critical gap in assessing whether implicit interactions—unplanned component linkages—can be realistically exploited in cyber-attacks.
• To develop a formal method for determining how a compromised system agent could leverage implicit interactions to influence other agents.
• To quantify the exploitability of such interactions to support risk assessment and mitigation planning during system design.
• To enable system designers to proactively strengthen security and dependability by identifying and mitigating high-risk implicit interactions early in the development lifecycle.
• To demonstrate the feasibility of automated analysis through a prototype tool integrated with C²KA-based system specifications.

Proposed method

• Uses Communicating Concurrent Kleene Algebra (C²KA) to formally model system components and their communication behaviors, distinguishing between system behavior and environment.
• Applies influence and response analysis to model how a compromised agent can trigger unintended behaviors via implicit interactions.
• Constructs attack scenarios by identifying sequences in which a compromised agent exploits an implicit interaction to alter system state or behavior.
• Employs a formal measure of exploitability derived from the number and complexity of possible attack scenarios, reflecting the likelihood of successful exploitation.
• Integrates the analysis into a prototype tool that automates scenario generation and exploitability scoring from C²KA specifications.
• Leverages C²KA’s ability to model both message-passing and shared-variable communication, enabling deterministic analysis of attack surfaces.

Experimental results

Research questions

• RQ1 What are the possible ways in which a compromised system agent can exploit an implicit interaction to influence the behavior of other agents in a distributed system?
• RQ2 How can the exploitability of an implicit interaction be formally measured to assess its threat level to system security and dependability?
• RQ3 To what extent can the proposed method identify and analyze realistic attack scenarios in complex distributed systems using formal modeling?
• RQ4 How effective is the prototype tool in automating the detection and analysis of exploitability in real-world system designs?
• RQ5 Can the proposed approach guide system designers in mitigating implicit interaction vulnerabilities through design modifications or control mechanisms?

Key findings

• The proposed approach successfully identifies multiple realistic attack scenarios in which a compromised agent can exploit implicit interactions to influence system behavior, demonstrating the method’s practical relevance.
• The exploitability measure provides a quantitative basis for ranking implicit interactions by threat level, enabling prioritization of mitigation efforts.
• The prototype tool enables automated analysis of C²KA specifications, confirming the feasibility of applying the method to systems of moderate size and complexity.
• The use of C²KA allows for precise modeling of both message-passing and shared-memory communication, supporting comprehensive attack scenario generation.
• The method enables early detection of cybersecurity vulnerabilities during system design, supporting the development of more resilient and secure distributed systems.
• While the paper does not assess the full impact of attacks, it lays the foundation for future simulation-based impact analysis to evaluate real-world consequences of exploited implicit interactions.