LWeb: Information Flow Security for Multi-Tier Web Applications
This paper presents LWeb, a framework for enforcing label-based, information flow policies in database-using web applications. In a nutshell, LWeb marries the LIO Haskell IFC enforcement library with the Yesod web programming framework. The implementation has two parts. First, we extract the core of LIO into a monad transformer (LMonad) and then apply it to Yesod’s core monad. Second, we extend Yesod’s table definition DSL and query functionality to permit defining and enforcing label-based policies on tables and enforcing them during query processing. LWeb’s policy language is expressive, permitting dynamic per-table and per-row policies. We formalize the essence of LWeb in the $\lambda_{\mathit{LWeb}}$ calculus and mechanize the proof of noninterference in Liquid Haskell. This mechanization constitutes the first metatheoretic proof carried out in Liquid Haskell. We also used LWeb to build a substantial web site hosting the Build it, Break it, Fix it security-oriented programming contest. The site involves 40 data tables and sophisticated policies. Compared to manually checking security policies, LWeb imposes a modest runtime overhead of between 2% to 21%. It reduces the trusted code base from the whole application to just 1% of the application code, and 21% of the code overall (when counting LWeb too).
Slides (POPL19 Slides.pdf) | 465KiB |
Fri 18 JanDisplayed time zone: Belfast change
15:21 - 16:27 | |||
15:21 22mTalk | LWeb: Information Flow Security for Multi-Tier Web Applications Research Papers James Parker University of Maryland, Niki Vazou IMDEA Software Institute, Michael Hicks University of Maryland, College Park Link to publication DOI Media Attached File Attached | ||
15:43 22mTalk | From Fine- to Coarse-Grained Dynamic Information Flow Control and BackDistinguished Paper Research Papers Marco Vassena Chalmers University of Technology, Alejandro Russo Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, Deepak Garg Max Planck Institute for Software Systems, Vineet Rajani MPI-SWS, Deian Stefan University of California San Diego Link to publication DOI Media Attached File Attached | ||
16:05 22mTalk | Modalities, Cohesion, and Information Flow Research Papers Alex Kavvos Wesleyan University Link to publication DOI Pre-print File Attached |