Applying Security Risk Analysis to a Service-Based System

Risk analysis is the only effective way of making value judgments about the need for security. Established analysis methods apply to whole operational systems, taking a necessarily holistic view of security, but this makes them difficult to integrate into the design process for service-based applications, where design and implementation is independent of operational deployment. However, the most costly mistakes occur early in the development lifecycle, and effective security can be difficult to retrofit, motivating the need for early security analysis. This paper describes SeDAn (Security Design Analysis), a security risk analysis framework that is adapted for use in the design phase of service-based systems, and its application to a significant grid-based application (DAME). The complete lifecycle of the risk analysis is described, and the effectiveness of the process in identifying design defects validates both the need for, and the effectiveness of, this type of analysis.