Security-critical components recognition algorithm for complex heterogeneous information systems

With the skyrocketing development of technologies, there are many issues in information security quantitative evaluation (ISQE) of complex heterogeneous information systems (CHISs). The development of CHIS calls for an ISQE model based on security-critical components to improve the efficiency of system security evaluation urgently. In this paper, we summarize the implication of critical components in different filed and propose a recognition algorithm of security-critical components based on threat attack tree to support the ISQE process. The evaluation model establishes a framework for ISQE of CHISs that are updated iteratively. Firstly, with the support of asset identification and topology data, we sort the security importance of each asset based on the threat attack tree and obtain the security-critical components (set) of the CHIS. Then, we build the evaluation indicator tree of the evaluation target and propose an ISQE algorithm based on the coefficient of variation to calculate the security quality value of the CHIS. Moreover, we present a novel indicator measurement uncertainty aiming to better supervise the performance of the proposed model. Simulation results show the advantages of the proposed algorithm in the evaluation of CHISs.