The School of Computing

Profile

Benjamin is a Lecturer in the School of Computing, University of Portsmouth. He holds a Ph.D. degree in computer science (2003) from Dublin City University, M.Sc. degree in computer science (1999) from Trinity College Dublin and B.Sc. degree in Electronics (1995) from Garyounis University.

Benjamin's main research interests generally include areas of large-scale distributed systems such as Grid and Cloud computing, formal methods and foundations of computing systems, trust and security management and requirements engineering. He has been involved in several successful European projects in areas of trust and security for large-scale distributed systems, such Consequence, XtreemOS and GridTrust.

Benjamin is a member of several working groups including the Cloud Computing Security Alliance, ERCIM Formal Methods for Industrial and Critical Systems, ERCIM Security and Trust Management and NESSI’s Trust, Security and Dependability group.

Research Interests

Requirements Engineering

This includes the application of the KAOS goal-oriented requirements engineering methodology in the modelling of security requirements at the business level for distributed and Grid-based systems.

Formal Modelling and Verification of Security Properties

This includes applications of formal techniques, such as Event-B, pi calculus and CSP, for the modelling and analysis of security properties in distributed, mobile, Grid-based systems and cryptographic protocols.

Quantitative Aspects

I am mainly interested in the measurement of quantitative properties of computing systems using formal techniques, in particular, techniques for the quantification of security. Such techniques could be runtime, such as reputation systems, or static time, such as static analysis techniques for detecting the speed of information leakage or the cost of mobility primitives.

Configuration Analysis

This area is concerned with providing trade-offs among different system properties in a manner that leads to optimum system configurations using constraint satisfaction techniques (shallow formal methods). Examples could be trading-off security with performance and vice versa.

Mobility Theories

I am interested in theories on the meaning of mobility, especially within the process algebraic community, as well as extensions of message-passing process algebra with primitives for the modelling of security and cryptography capabilities.

Middleware Systems

In the past, I was involved in research related to the problem of security adaptability in CORBA-based middleware systems.

Publications

Full publication list: http://azizb.myweb.port.ac.uk/publications.html

Selected Publications

Edited Books

Joseph Morris, Benjamin Aziz, and Frederic Oehl (editors). Proceedings of the 6th International Workshop on Formal Methods. Electronic Workshops in Computing (eWiC), British Computer Society, July 2003.

Book Chapters

Alvaro Arenas, Benjamin Aziz, Fabio Martinelli, Marinella Petrocchi and Paolo Mori. Trust Management for Grid Systems. In Trust Modelling and Management in Digital Environments: From Social Concept to System Development, IGI-Global, December 2009

Journals

(impact factor source: www.scimagojr.com)

Alvaro Arenas, Benjamin Aziz and Gheorghe Silaghi. Reputation Management in Collaborative Computing Systems. Journal of Security and Communications Networks, John Wiley and Sons, 2009.

Benjamin Aziz, Simon Foley, John Herbert and Garret Swart. Configuring Storage Area Networks Using Mandatory Security. Journal of Computer Security, 17(2):191-210, IOS Press, 2009. Current 2-yr impact factor is 1.805

Benjamin Aziz and Geoff Hamilton. Modelling and Analysis of PKI-based Systems Using Process Calculi. International Journal of Foundations of Computer Science, 18(3):593-618, World Scienti c, 2007. Current 2-yr impact factor is 0.679

Benjamin Aziz, Simon Foley, John Herbert and Garret Swart. Recon guring Role Based Access Control Policies Using Risk Semantics. Journal of High Speed Networks: Special Issue on Managing Security Policies, Modelling Verification and Configuration, 15(3):261-273, IOS Press, 2006. Current 2-yr impact factor is 0.392

Benjamin Aziz, Geoff Hamilton and David Gray. A Static Analysis of Cryptographic Processes: The Denotational Approach. Journal of Logic and Algebraic Programming, 64(2):285-320, Elsevier, August 2005. Current 2-yr impact factor is 1.196

Conferences

Benjamin Aziz, Shirley Crompton and Michael Wilson. A Metadata Model for Data Centric Security. To appear in the 8th FTRA International Conference on Secure and Trust Computing, Data Management, and Applications (STA 2011), Crete, Greece, June 2011 (Springer).

Benjamin Aziz, Alvaro Arenas and Michael Wilson. SecPAL4DSA: A Policy Language for Specifying Data Sharing Agreements. To appear in the 8th FTRA International Conference on Secure and Trust Computing, Data Management, and Applications (STA 2011), Crete, Greece, June 2011 (Springer).

Benjamin Aziz, Alvaro E. Arenas and Michael Wilson.  Model-based Refinement of Security Policies in Collaborative Virtual Organisations. In Proceedings of the 3rd International Symposium on Engineering Secure Software and Systems (ESSOS’11), Madrid, Spain, LNCS 6542: 1-14, Springer, February 2011.

Alvaro E. Arenas, Benjamin Aziz, Juan Bicarregui and Michael D. Wilson. An Event-B Approach to Data Sharing Agreements. In Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Integrated Formal Methods (iFM 2010), Nancy, France, LNCS 6396: 28-42, Springer, October 2010.

Benjamin Aziz, Alvaro Arenas, Ian Johnson, Matej Artac, Ales Cernivec and Philip Robinson. Management of Security Policies in Virtual Organisations. In Proceedings of the 2010 International Conference on Security and Cryptography (SECRYPT 2010), Athens, Greece, July 2010

Benjamin Aziz, Alvaro Arenas, Shirley Crompton and Brian Matthews. From Community to Resource Policies: A Tool for the Automatic Refinement of VO Policies. In Proceedings of the 2009 UK e-Science All Hands Meeting, Oxford, UK, December 2009.

Benjamin Aziz and Geoff Hamilton. Detecting Man-in-the-Middle Attacks by Precise Timing. In Proceedings of The Third International Conference on Emerging Secu-rity Information, Systems and Technologies (Securware 2009), Athens, Greece, 81-86, IEEE Computer Society, June 2009 (won best paper award).

Federico Stagni, Alvaro Arenas, Benjamin Aziz and Fabio Martinelli. On Usage Control in Data Grids. In Proceedings of the 3rd IFIP International Conference on Trust Management (TM'09), Purdue University, West Lafayette, USA, IFIP Advances in Information and Communication Technology, vol. 300/2009, 99-116, June 2009.

Syed Naqvi, Philippe Massonet, Benjamin Aziz, Alvaro Arenas, Fabio Martinelli, Paolo Mori, Lorenzo Blasi and Giovanni Cortese. Fine-grained continuous usage control of service based Grids the GridTrust Approach. In Proceedings of ServiceWave 2008, Madrid, Spain, December 2008.

Alvaro Arenas, Benjamin Aziz, Philippe Massonet and Christophe Ponsard. A Goal-Oriented Approach to Grid Security Requirements. In Proceedings of the 2008 UK e-Science All Hands Meeting, Edinburgh, UK, September 2008.

Michael D. Wilson, Alvaro Arenas, Brian M. Matthews, Shirley Crompton and Benjamin Aziz. Security Policies in Scientific Data Sharing Agreements. In Proceedings of the 2008 UK e-Science All Hands Meeting, Edinburgh, UK, September 2008.

Lorenzo Blasi, Alvaro Arenas, Benjamin Aziz, Paolo Mori, Umberto Rovati, Bruno Crispo, Fabio Martinelli and Philippe Massonet. A Secure Environment for Grid-Based Supply Chains. In Proceedings of the eChallenges e-2008 Conference, Stockholm, Sweden, October 2008.

Benjamin Aziz, Alvaro Arenas, Fabio Martinelli, Ilaria Matteucci and Paolo Mori. Controlling Usage of Business Processes through Fine-Grained Security Policies. In Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Trust, Privacy and Security in Digital Business (TrustBus 2008), Turin, Italy, LNCS 5185:100-117, Springer, September 2008.

Juan Bicarregui, Alvaro Arenas, Benjamin Aziz, Philippe Massonet and Christophe Ponsard. Towards Modelling Obligations in Event-B. In Proceedings of the ABZ 2008 Conference, London, UK, LNCS 5238:181-194, Springer, September 2008.