A Systematic Framework for Structured Object-Oriented Security Requirements Analysis in Embedded Systems

The primary goal of this paper is to develop a structured object-oriented security requirements analysis methodology for the elicitation and analysis of security requirements in embedded systems. There are several approaches to elicit, analyze and specify security requirements in embedded systems ranging from formal mathematical models for proof of certain security properties to informal methods that are easily understood. Applicability of formal security models is limited because they are complex and it is time consuming to develop. On the other hand, informal security requirements analysis methods are not integrated with conceptual models in requirements analysis, and although both external and internal threats have been dealt using use cases and misuse cases, they provide no process for analyzing both internal and external threats in a structured manner. This paper discusses a structured object-oriented security requirements analysis methodology for the elicitation and analysis of security requirements in embedded systems. It is capable of identifying hierarchically both external and internal threats posed by both external and internal actors of a system level by level. It is illustrated and validated by security requirements analysis for an advanced embedded power grid control system.