Bickering In-Depth: Rethinking the Composition of Competing Security Systems

A wide variety of security software competes for control of desktops, servers, and handhelds. Competition for control over a system's security posture can leave systems mired in a performance tar pit and subvert the very security they were meant to provide. Although the use of defense in-depth is widely recommended, it isn't nearly as automated as it could be, particularly when it comes to composing policy in addition to functionality. We suggest a paradigm in which security programmers intentionally design their code to cooperate with similar software by negotiating over security-critical resources, system measurement points, event types, and trusted information flow paths.