SafeConfig 2011 - SafeConfig 2011: 4th Symposium on Configuration Analytics and Automation

SafeConfig 2011: 4th Symposium on Configuration Analytics and Automation

Arlington, VA, USA

October 31 - November 1, 2011

www.safeconfig.org/2011

Sponsors: NIST (Technical Co-Sponsorship from IEEE and ACM is pending)

Important Dates:

Abstract Registration: August 29, 2011

Submission: Deadline. September 19, 2011

Camera Ready: October 17, 2011

Conference Dates: October 31 - November 1, 2011

Configuration is a key component that determines the security, performance

and reliability of networked systems and services. A typical enterprise

network contains thousands of network and security appliances such as

firewalls, IPSec gateways, IDS/IPS, authentication servers, authorization,

proxies, load balancer, QoS routers, virtual overlays, mobility managers

etc, that must be configured uniformly considering their functional and

logical inter-dependency in order to enforce global polices and

requirements. As the current technology moves toward "smart" cyber

infrastructure and open configurable platforms (e.g., OpenFlow and virtual

cloud computing), the need for configuration analytics and automation

significantly increases. The automated and provable synthesis, refinement,

validation and tuning of configurations parameters such as polices, rules,

variables or interfaces are required for supporting assurable, secure and

sustainable networked services.

Configuration complexity places a heavy burden on both regular users and

experienced administrators and dramatically reduces overall network

assurability and usability. For example, a December 2008 report from Center

for Strategic and International Studies "Securing Cyberspace for the 44th

Presidency" states that "inappropriate or incorrect security configurations

were responsible for 80% of Air Force vulnerabilities" and a May 2008 report

from Juniper Networks "What is Behind Network Downtime?" states that "human

factors [are] responsible for 50 to 80 percent of network device outages".

This symposium offers a unique opportunity by bringing together researchers

form academic, industry as well as government agencies to discuss these

challenges, exchange experiences, and propose joint plans for promoting

research and development in this area. SafeConfig Symposium program will

include invited talks, technical presentation of peer-reviewed papers,

poster/demo sessions, and joint panels on research collaboration, funding

and technology transfer opportunities. SafeConfig Symposium solicit the

submission of original unpublished ideas in 8-page long papers, 4-page short

papers, 2-pages posters and demos on one of the following or related

domains/topics. Selected accepted papers will be invited for submission as

book chapters.

Topics (but are not limited to)

Application-specific Configuration Analysis: . Enterprise Networking for

Clouds and Data Centers. . Cyber-Physical Systems and Intelligent

Infrastructure (e.g., Smart Grid, remote medical systems, transportation,

building etc) . Mission-critical Networking (sensor-actuator, and ad hoc

networks) . Overly and Virtual and Mobile Systems

Science of Configuration: . Abstract models and languages for configuration

specification . Formal semantics of security policies . Configuration

composition and integration . Autonomic and self-configuration (auto-tune

and auto-defense) . Integration of sensor information and policy

configuration . Theory of defense-of-depth . Configuration for

sustainability . Configuration as a game . Configuration synthesis,

remediation and planning . Smart Configuration . Configuration

accountability . Configuration provenance . Declarative and virtual

configuration

Analytics: . Techniques: formal methods, statistical, interactive

visualization, reasoning, etc . Methodology: multi-level, multi-abstraction,

hierarchical etc. . Integrated Analytics for security, reliability and QoS

assurance. . Analytics under uncertainty . Security analytics using

heterogeneous sensors . Automated verification of system configuration and

integration . Configuration Metrics . Integrated network and host

configuration . Configuration testing, forensics, debugging and evaluation .

Analytics of cyber attacks and terrorism . Misconfiguration (forensics) root

cause analysis . Tools and case studies . DNS, DNS-SEC, inter, intra-domain

and QoS routers configuration management . Wireless, sensor and MANET

configuration management . Servers, VMs, storage network and database

configuration management . RBAC configuration management

Automation and Optimization: . Configuration refinement and enforcement .

Health-inspired and 0-configuraiton . Risk-aware and Context-aware

adaptation . Machine-based configuration synthesis and enforcement . Moving

target defense and polymorphic networks . Configuration Economics: balancing

goals and constraints . Continuous monitoring . Usability issues in security

management . Automated signature and patch management . Automated alarm

management . Configuration management in name resolution, inter-domain

routing, and virtualized environments . Survivable complex adaptive system

Open Interfaces, standardization and management: . SCAP-based solutions

(Security Content Automation Protocol) . Configuration sharing (for cloud,

agencies, companies) . Configuration provenance . Usability: human factors

and cognitive science . Abstraction and frameworks: evolutionary and clean

slate approaches . Protecting the privacy and integrity of security

configuration . Configuration Management case studies or user studies

Submission Guidelines

Papers must present original work and must be written in English. We require

that the authors use the IEEE format for papers, using one of the IEEE

Proceeding Templates. We solicit two types of papers, regular papers and

position papers. The length of the regular papers in the proceedings format

should not exceed 8 US letter pages, excluding well-marked appendices.

Committee members are not required to read the appendices, so papers must be

intelligible without them. Short papers may not exceed 4 pages. Papers are

to be submitted electronically as a single PDF file at www.edas.info.

Authors of accepted papers must guarantee that their papers will be

presented at the conference.

TPC Co-Chairs:

Ehab Al-Shaer, UNC Charlotte

Tony Sager, National Security Agency

Harigovind V Ramasamy, IBM Research

General Chair:

John Banghart, National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)

Steering Committee:

Ehab Al-Shaer, UNC Charlotte

Krishna Kant, Intel / NSF

Sanjai Narain, Telcordia

Ehab Al-Shaer, PhD |

Professor and Director of Cyber Defense and Network Assurability (CyberDNA)

Research Center

UNC Charlotte | Dept. of Software and Information Systesm (Woodward

Building)

9201 University City Blvd. | Charlotte, NC 28223

Phone: 704-687-8663 | Fax: 704-687-6065