Model for Quantifying the Quality of Secure Service

Abstract

Although not common today, communications networks could adjust security postures based on changing mission security requirements, environmental conditions, or adversarial capability, through the coordinated use of multiple channels. This will require the ability to measure the security of communications networks in a meaningful way. To address this need, in this paper, we introduce the Quality of Secure Service (QoSS) model, a methodology to evaluate how well a system meets its security requirements. This construct enables a repeatable and quantifiable measure of security in a single- or multi-channel network under static configurations. In this approach, the quantification of security is based upon the probabilities that adversarial listeners and disruptors may gain access to or manipulate transmitted data. The initial model development, albeit a snap-shot of the network security, provides insights into what may affect end-to-end security and to what degree. The model was compared against the performance and expected security of several point-to-point networks, and three simplified architectures are presented as examples. Message fragmentation and duplication across the available channels provides a security performance trade-space, with an accompanying comprehensive measurement of the QoSS. The results indicate that security may be improved with message fragmentation across multiple channels when compared to the number of adversarial listeners or disruptors. This, in turn, points to the need, in future work, to build a full simulation environment with specific protocols and networks to validate the initial modeled results.