Systematic review of security challenges to OSGi service framework
Kamran Talib1, Tabassum Riaz2 , B S R K Kishore3,
1 2
8210215359, 8205052577 ,
1
kamrantalib1982@yahoo.com, 2 tabasumriaz@yahoo.com, 3 bsrk_kishore@yahoo.com, 4-
Blekinge Tekniska Hogskola, Sweden
Abstract:
The systematic literature review regarding the
OSGi framework is done in this paper.
Specifically, the security issues/challenges and
their solutions have been reviewed. This systematic
review has been made to take into account the
research about the security challenges to the OSGi
framework and the methods to face them proposed
by the researchers.
1. Introduction to OSGi
It„s a dynamic module system for Java™ platform
[1]. It is dynamic because it Install, start, stop,
update, and uninstall bundles at run time. It
includes dependency management, version
handling and visibility rules of OSGi bundle and
modules.
The OSGi Service Platform gives functionality to
Java to make Java the leading environment for
software development and integration [1]. It
provides the standardized primitives to construct
small, collaborative and reusable components for
applications. Then these components can be
composed to make a new application and deployed.
In OSGi Service Platform, there is no need to
restart as the composition of the devices of various
networks change dynamically. The OSGi
technology provides the SOA (Service-oriented
architecture) that makes the components to search
each other for cooperation and collaboration
dynamically so that the coupling is minimized and
managed. OSGi Alliance has developed and
introduces different standard component interfaces
for general functions like Configuration, Http
Servers, security, logging, XML, user
authentication and administration and much more.
The adopters‟ benefit of OSGi technology are
development cost is reduced because it provides the
integration of pre-developed and tested modules
instead of developing new applications. That‟s
why, this also reduces the costs of maintenance.
V. S P Babu4
3 4
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2. Repeatable Process:
At first the initial questions are set which are
revised and refined to make more specific and
important research questions and after that the
detailed discussion the final research questions
are finalized.
2.1 Initial questions for research:
What is OSGi framework?
What are specifications of OSGi
framework?
Keywords: OSGi
2.2 Revised research questions:
How security is implemented in OSGi
framework?
What are the general security specifications
of OSGi framework?
Keywords: Security AND Implementation
AND OSGi
2.3 Final research questions:
What are the security challenges to the OSGi
framework and their solutions?
Keywords: Security in OSGi, security
challenges AND OSGi, Security Solution
AND OSGi
3 Systematic Review of OSGi
3.1 Review protocol of OSGi framework
The review protocol of the OSGi framework is
as follows:
3.2 Background
The major purpose of the review protocol is to
review the research already done in the field of
OSGi framework from 2000 to 2008. The
overview of the OSGi framework will be
presented by this systematic review. It will
provide the current level of the research done
in OSGi framework.
3.3 Strategy for search:
The online search process will be done by the
following search terms and resources;
a) Search terms:
i. OSGi
ii. OSGi framework
iii. Why OSGi?
 iv. Need of (ii)
v. Introduction to (i) and (ii)
vi. Security in (i)
vii. Security issues AND (i)
viii. Security threats to (ii) 3.6 Quality evaluation and processes:
ix. Security threats AND (ii) The research papers and articles that are
x. Security mechanism in (ii) selected will be assessed on the basis of the
xi. Authentication AND (ii) structure of the research papers or article i.e.,
xii. Authorization AND (ii) subheadings of the paper like the introduction
xiii. Access control AND (ii) of paper, methods/models described, analysis
xiv. Integrity of services AND (ii) and conclusion.
xv. Methods to secure (ii)
xvi. Limitations in (vi) 3.7 Strategy for Data extraction:
To gain the information from study followings
b) Search resources: forms of data extraction will be used.
1) General Information of Research
We used following online resources; Paper:
IEEE Xplore 1. Research article or paper title
ACM digital library 2. Name(s) of author(s)
Inspec 3. Conference/Journal/Conference
Springer Proceedings
4. Search terms used to get the search
3.4 Article Selection Criteria: research papers or articles
We will focus on the general research papers, 5. Research article or paper retrieval
articles, case studies, experiments and surveys database
which will be related to the our research 6. Publication date
questions published from 2000 to 2008, others 2) Specific information of Research
will be excluded. Paper:
1. Environment of study
First Selection Step i) Academia
ii) Industrial
2. Research methodology
IEEE
i) Case study
ACM
ii) Action research
Springer iii) Experiment
Inspec iv) Survey
v) Subjects
3. Professionals
i) Students
ii) Selection of subjects
4. OSGi framework
3.5 Selection procedure: i) Definitions of OSGi and OSGi
First of all we will see the title then read the framework
abstract, if it will be relevant to our research ii) Implementation of OSGi
question then we will study its conclusion and framework
finally the whole paper to find the specific iii) Security Implementation in OSGi
information needed to answer the research framework
question. iv) Security issues in OSGi
framework
v) Challenges regarding security in
OSGi framework

3.8 Strategy for Data extraction and

Synthesis:
In the process of systematic review, synthesis
of data is done by gathering and reviewing the
results gained from the included basic studies.
The synthesis quality is will be gained from
studying and analyzing the research papers or
articles. The whole results are stated as
according to the research questions mentioned
in review protocol. The data extraction
procedures will be used to gather the
information from each basic study.
Chi chih houng & et.al [2] has presented the
challenge to the security of the OSGi
framework due to the java. They describe that
though the java presents a strong mechanism
against modification of the system but there
are chances of the service level attacks due to
the services which are authorized and
accessing the same resources and files. They
say that java has weak security against the
denial of service because when a service is
authorized to use the resources allocated to it
then system may hog by it if this service is not
able to stop the nonstop allocation. The system
can be rebooted to end denial of the service
attack in general. But the problem with OSGi
is that the local system makes cache of the
bundle. The OSGi is not capable of stopping
this attack as it can‟t remove the bundle which
is cached in the local disk. They are agreed
with the sunil & et al [10], who proposed an
intrusion detector and facility of thread level
auditing for the JVM for detecting the
malicious code attack.
Chi Chih houng & et.al [3] has described
another threat to the OSGi framework known
as shared object attack which is the major
threat to the Java card environment also, that is
similar to the OSGi.
Gail-Joon Ahn & et.al [3] explain that service
of User Admin used for authorization is not
adequate enough to work in open and dynamic
environments like OSGi. They has proposed
the solution of this threat with the help of
RBAC (role-based access control), in which
the users will be associated with the roles and
then the roles are associated with the
permissions. The mechanism of authorization
in the OSGi framework is mapped and
configured with the RBAC.
Pierre Parrend and Stephane Frenot [4] present
that the OSGi is becoming the de-facto
component based middleware for the
extensible soft wares, with the help of its
management layer for managing the life cycle
of the bundles or components. But it is hard to
find out the security features of this life cycle
especially during the deployment phase of the
bundles that is generally done over the non
secure networks. The challenge is that how to
deploy the bundles securely.
Pierre Parrend and Stephane Frenot [4] have
developed some tools for deploying the service
bundles securely. SF-Jarisgnerl supports the
security of the early life cycle deployment
phase. SFelix2 has implemented the validation
layer of digital signature of specifications of
OSGi Release 4 [11].
Hee-Young Lim & et al.[4] has described that
RSH protocol or the public Key Infrastructure
(PKI) used for authentication of the service
bundles securely are not efficient enough for
the OSGi framework having a little resources
because RSH and PKI require long time for the
encryption/decryption process and more
memory is needed for this purpose as well.
They have also raised another issue that the
only OSGi User-Admin specification is not
enough sufficient for the management of the
users and associated permissions with them.
Further, the movement and deployment of the
service bundles is in on demand fashion, so it
is very difficult to build the policies without
knowing in detail about the service bundle
implementation. So the policy file format
should be common and standard when the
policy files are referenced by the service
bundles. Many security threats may arise in the
policy files being transferred to the home
gateway.
Hee-Young Lim & et al [5] has proposed the
above problem using the XML signature.
Using XML signature, a service bundle is
transferred from the operator to the receiver in
the secure way. It provides the solution of the
problem regarding the generation and the
transmission of the policies of the access
control securely to the home gateway with the
help of RBAC model based on the XACML in
the home network of the service OSGi
framework.
Young-Gab Kim & et al [6] explain that the
process used to authenticate the service
bundles using PKI and RSH is not proper for
the OSGi framework that has limited memory
as well as operations. As operations of public
key like DSA or RSA may be performed by it
and it will also check the certificate which is
working with the certification authority for
effectiveness. And the one problem with the
RSA is that encryption as well as
authentication of all the data being transferred
among operators and the service gateways, is
based on the MACs (Message Authentication
Code). So there is expectation that there will
be poor performance when the service bundle
size will be increased.
MAC-based service bundle has been proposed
by Young-Gab Kim & et al [6] for
authenticating the service bundles rather than
RSH protocol or PKI. At first, mutual
authentication b/w service bundle and operator
is carried on, then the MAC-based
authentication is done. The mutual
authentication provides shared key which is
then used for the formation of MAC. They
have also designed a key exchange method for
sending the service bundle in safe form in the
phase of the bootstrapping which is used for
recognizing and starting the equipment.
Jongil Jenong & et al [7] has discussed the
security concerns when web and mobile
services are expanded up to home networks by
using OSGi service framework. According to
 them the core security issue is that security research in this field. Secondly, this review
architecture has distributed nature and there is cannot stay away from selection bias while
need of building of the main security searching the papers relevant to the research
characteristics the whole system parts. It is question. We only searched the papers
necessary for the user to remember his user available in English on some research
name and the password for every service, and databases like ACM and IEEE Xplore etc.
administer has to manage the passwords
present in the database. There is also danger of
the insecurity of the passwords because the 5 Conclusion:
password is transmitted frequently on the sites.
The solution to the above problem as The systematic review describes the work done
recommended by Jong Jenong & et al [7] is in the field of security of the OSGi service
SS0 (Single sign-on), which provides the framework. It summarizes the security threats
facility of authentication of the user only once to the OSGi framework as well as accounts
for using the various services. SAML can be their solutions proposed by the researchers.
used for the exchanging of the information in The major challenges were related to bundle
the format of XML. OASIS [8] has authentication, authorization for using a
recommended the SAML for the purpose of service, problems related inner Java security
single sign-on. like denial of service attack, limitations of the
Phu H.Phung and David [9] have proposed the PKI and RSH protocol etc. In short, the
enforcement of the policy in OSGi framework systematic review has helped us to search the
with the help of aspect oriented programming papers which focus on our research question
which is AspectJ. for finding the challenges to OSGi service
framework and their possible solutions.
Ref. Date of
No. Article Title
No. Publish
Advanced OSGi Security May
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