An Ontological Approach to Computer System Security

Abstract

ABSTRACT Computer system security relies on different aspects of a computer system such as security policies, security mechanisms, threat analysis, and countermeasures. This paper provides an ontological approach to capturing and utilizing the fundamental attributes of those key components to determine the effects of vulnerabilities on a system's security. Our ontology for vulnerability management (OVM) has been populated with all vulnerabilities in NVD (see http://nvd.nist.gov/scap.cfm) with additional inference rules and knowledge discovery mechanisms so that it may provide a promising pathway to make security automation program (NIST Version 1.0, 2007 NIST. 2007. Information Security Automation Program, Automating Vulnerability Management, Security Measurement, and Compliance, Version 1.0 Beta revised May 22 [Google Scholar]) more effective and reliable.