The Inevitability of Failure: The Flawed Assumption of Security in Modern Computing Environments

TLDR

Public awareness of computing security is rising, yet current approaches fail because they rely on flawed assumptions that mainstream OS mechanisms can provide adequate protection, and the growing connectivity and data sharing heighten the need for truly secure operating systems. The paper calls for renewed focus on secure operating systems to establish a solid foundation for future security efforts. It identifies missing secure OS features, argues their necessity for protecting application‑space security mechanisms, and illustrates how current solutions depend critically on these features.

Abstract

Although public awareness of the need for secu­ rity in computing systems is growing rapidly, current efforts to provide security are unlikely to succeed. Current security efforts suffer from the flawed assumption that adequate security can be provided in applications with the existing security mechanisms of mainstream operating systems. In reality, the need for secure operating systems is growing in today’s com­ puting environment due to substantial increases in connectivity and data sharing. The goal of this paper is to motivate a renewed interest in secure operating systems so that future security efforts may build on a solid foundation. This paper identifies several secure operating system features which are lacking in mainstream operating systems, argues that these features are necessary to adequately protect general applica­ tion-space security mechanisms, and provides con­ crete examples of how current security solutions are critically dependent on these features.