Making DNS Servers Resistant to Cyber Attacks: An Empirical Study on Formal Methods and Performance Conference Paper

abstract

• IRONSIDES is an open-source Domain Name System (DNS) server designed using formal methods to reduce DNS vulnerabilities to cyber attacks. The use of formal methods gives IRONSIDES provable security properties, including the absence of numerous security flaws that plague BIND and Windows DNS. It also raises an empirical question: Does the use of formal methods to generate provably secure code require sacrificing performance? We present the results of an experimental investigation to answer this question. We compared IRONSIDES to BIND, Windows DNS, and numerous other DNS servers on both Windows and Unix. Our results show IRONSIDES performs quite well compared to other DNS servers, both proprietary and open-source, particularly given the resources expended in its development. This suggests that, at least in the DNS domain, increasing security with formal methods to render them less vulnerable to cyber attacks does not require sacrificing performance.

name of conference

• 2017 IEEE 41st Annual Computer Software and Applications Conference (COMPSAC)

authors

• Carlisle, Martin

published proceedings

• 2017 IEEE 41ST ANNUAL COMPUTER SOFTWARE AND APPLICATIONS CONFERENCE (COMPSAC), VOL 2

author list (cited authors)

• Fagin, B. S., Klanderman, B., & Carlisle, M. C.

citation count

• 0

complete list of authors

• Fagin, Barry S||Klanderman, Bradley||Carlisle, Martin C

publication date

• July 2017

publisher

• Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)  Publisher

published in

• Compsac -New York-  Journal

keywords

• Ada
• Cyber Attack Resistance
• Dns
• Formal Methods
• Internet Software
• Open Source
• Performance Analysis
• Spark

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

• 10.1109/COMPSAC.2017.165

start page

• 566

end page

• 571

volume

• 02

URL

• http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/compsac.2017.165