Kyla Gorman '09, Colden Prime '10 and Tom Williams '11 are working under the direction of Professor Stuart Hirshfield this summer on projects related to computer security. All of the work is being sponsored by the Air Force Research Lab in Rome, N.Y.
Gorman, who is working at the lab for her second summer, is working with SE-Linux, a Department of Defense-sponsored secure operating system that controls how a computer is used and controlled based on formal access policies. She is becoming an expert at how such policies are defined, and how they are enforced by the operating system. Gorman is writing new programs that will help to identify where policies fail, and how policies can be written to ensure safe operations. She is a double-major in computer science and creative writing from Honesdale, Pa.
Prime and Williams are working together on a project aimed at defining a new framework for computer forensics (the investigation of internal computer data on machines that have been compromised). Traditionally, such analyses are done "post mortem," that is, after the machine has been compromised. Not only is this type of analysis done when it is too late to undo any damage or to prevent further damage, it also typically yields data that itself has been intentionally corrupted by experienced hackers.
Prime and Williams are concentrating on "live" forensics, that is, trying to collect and recognize data that indicates a security problem while the machine is still running and possibly under attack) Williams, an incoming first-year student from Clinton, is experimenting with rootkits (collections of programs that are used to attack a computer "at its root") and Prime is investigating a variety of other forms of "malware" (malicious software), both with an eye toward how such programs can be recognized while attacks are in progress. He is a member of Hamilton's rugby club team from Elizabethtown, N.Y.
Gorman, who is working at the lab for her second summer, is working with SE-Linux, a Department of Defense-sponsored secure operating system that controls how a computer is used and controlled based on formal access policies. She is becoming an expert at how such policies are defined, and how they are enforced by the operating system. Gorman is writing new programs that will help to identify where policies fail, and how policies can be written to ensure safe operations. She is a double-major in computer science and creative writing from Honesdale, Pa.
Prime and Williams are working together on a project aimed at defining a new framework for computer forensics (the investigation of internal computer data on machines that have been compromised). Traditionally, such analyses are done "post mortem," that is, after the machine has been compromised. Not only is this type of analysis done when it is too late to undo any damage or to prevent further damage, it also typically yields data that itself has been intentionally corrupted by experienced hackers.
Prime and Williams are concentrating on "live" forensics, that is, trying to collect and recognize data that indicates a security problem while the machine is still running and possibly under attack) Williams, an incoming first-year student from Clinton, is experimenting with rootkits (collections of programs that are used to attack a computer "at its root") and Prime is investigating a variety of other forms of "malware" (malicious software), both with an eye toward how such programs can be recognized while attacks are in progress. He is a member of Hamilton's rugby club team from Elizabethtown, N.Y.
