Among the various principles that form the bedrock of cybersecurity, one of the most essential is the principle of Least Common Mechanism. This principle holds that, in the design of security systems and protocols, mechanisms that are shared by more than one user or process should be minimized. This article dives into the meaning of this principle, its significance, and some practical examples of its application.
The Principle Explained
The principle of Least Common Mechanism stems from the idea that sharing mechanisms or resources among multiple users or processes can lead to potential security vulnerabilities. The more commonality there is among mechanisms, the greater the risk of one user’s activities affecting another user, either inadvertently or maliciously.
Sharing can lead to information leakage between users or processes, either by exposing sensitive data or by providing avenues for one user to affect the operation of another. Shared mechanisms can also become a single point of failure, where an issue with a shared mechanism can affect multiple users or processes.
The Significance of the Principle
The Least Common Mechanism principle is crucial for ensuring the robustness and reliability of a security system. By minimizing shared mechanisms, the principle reduces the attack surface area, limits the potential for unauthorized access or data leakage, and enhances system resilience.
In practical terms, the principle guides system designers to compartmentalize or segregate system resources, limit the use of global variables or resources, and carefully manage and restrict the sharing of resources such as memory, network connections, and files.
Practical Examples
Operating Systems:
Modern operating systems embody the principle of Least Common Mechanism by separating processes into their individual memory spaces. This prevents a bug or security vulnerability in one process from affecting others and avoids unintended information leakage between processes.
Database Access:
Consider an application that accesses a database. If every component of the application shares the same database access credentials, a compromise in one area could lead to unauthorized database access. Following the Least Common Mechanism principle, each component should have its own credentials, with privileges restricted to only what that component needs. This limits the potential damage if one component’s credentials are compromised.
Microservices Architecture:
In a Microservices Architecture, each service is isolated and runs its own process, reducing the sharing of resources and limiting the scope of potential attacks. This is an example of the Least Common Mechanism principle in action, where the lack of shared mechanisms increases the overall security of the system.
Cloud Environments:
In a cloud environment, one common mechanism often used is the hypervisor, which allows multiple virtual machines to share the same physical hardware. This can pose security risks. To mitigate this, some cloud providers offer dedicated hosts where a single user’s virtual machines are the only ones running on a particular piece of hardware, eliminating the common mechanism.
By minimizing shared resources and mechanisms, this principle provides a key tool for reducing security vulnerabilities and enhancing the reliability of a system
Link to Book: Secure Android Development: Best Practices for Robust Apps
