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In modern digital systems an equivalent of social construct of trust or confidence is used as a method to deliver important functionality. This may include, for example, trust-based routing in peer to peer networks, reputation through feedback rating on e-commerce sites or recommendation systems built on collaborative filtering for content distribution.
Unfortunately the use of trust (or confidence) in such systems does not only increase their functionality and usefulness. It also creates new opportunities for attacks, beyond what is considered to be the scope of the regular computer security. Such attacks, cleverly combining ideas taken from social engineering with new opportunities created by digital technology, may significantly undermine benefits of the use of confidence.
The talk will provide a systematic review of threats and attack scenarios for confidence-based (trust-based) systems. Starting from the review of the complexity-based model of confidence, the talk will introduce the analytical framework that can be used to identify and classify threats to confidence-based systems. The talk is illustrated by a series of conceptual attack scenarios, showing how in practice particular parts of the system can be attacked. This is accompanied by the analysis of possible defences against such attacks.
Piotr Cofta has joined British Telecom as a Chief Researcher, Security and Trust in the Mobility Research Centre. He is responsible for research in convergent identity, security and trust, as well as the new role of SIM. Previously he has been working for many years for Nokia and more recently for Media Lab Europe, concentrating on device security and trust. His research interest includes technical and social aspects of trust and security with special focus on opportunities in convergent environment and mobile commerce. He received his PhD in computer science from the University of Gdansk, Poland. He is a member of BCS. Dr Cofta is a contributor to several international standards; he publishes and speaks frequently. You can contact him at piotr.cofta@bt.com or at http://www.piotr.cofta.co.uk.