PD-0142: Meeting FTA_TAH_EXP.1 in the DBMS PP

This decision represents a long-term technical decision based on an OD, and may not be the same as the final results of the source OD. With respect to published criteria documentation and scheme documents, it provides suggested guidance on evaluation direction, but is not authoritative. Authoritative decisions are provided through the published criteria documents and published scheme and international interpretations thereof. With respect to published PPs, PDs are authoritative corrections to the PP, based on input from the PP author (if available), that are in force until the publication of the next revision of that PP.

Issue

In the PP "U.S. Government Protection Profile for Database Management Systems in Basic Robustness Environments, Version 1.1, June 7, 2006" the explicit requirements FTA_TAH_EXP.1.1 and FTA_TAH_EXP.1.2 are unclear:

FTA_TAH_EXP.1.1 Upon successful session establishment, the TSF shall store and retrieve the [date and time] of the last successful session establishment to the user.

FTA_TAH_EXP.1.2 Upon successful session establishment, the TSF shall store and retrieve the [date and time] of the last unsuccessful attempt to session establishment and the number of unsuccessful attempts since the last successful session establishment.

Taken together, the TOE must record the success and failure or session establishment to the user, however how this data is displayed or used is not specified. Clients would have to be able to accept the information, which may not be an implemented client feature and is outside TOE control. FTA_TAH_EX.1.2 appears to not make use of the previous session data it is retrieving.

Resolution

The TOE shall provide the capability to retrieve previous session success/failure information and make it available to client applications external to the TOE. The client applications may or may not accept or make use of the information.

Any TOE interfaces that provide interactive session establishment shall present information about the success/failure of previous session establishments, including the last successful and unsuccessful attempt date and time, and the number of unsuccessful attempts.

Support

Database products compliant with the DBMS PP have the requirement to maintain a record of successful and unsuccessful session establishments, and to present to the user upon session establishment information on the last successful and unsuccessful session establishment, as well as the number of unsuccessful session establishments since the last successful one. The problem is that many database products provide interactive interfaces only to administrators, and there is difficulty enforcing this requirement when the DBMS is serving as a backend database.

The issue was discussed with the PP author, and the compromise position is captured in this PD. The TOE is still required to maintain the record of successful and unsuccessful establishments. For the interactive session establishment interfaces it provides, it needs to display that information. For pure backend interactions (which are not interacting in the GUI or command-line sense), the TOE must provide the ability for the actual interface to present this information, although the TOE cannot enforce that the actual interface does so.

Specifically, in FTA_TAH_EXP.1.1, though the TOE cannot require a client to access and retrieve previous session establishment information, it can make it available. The fulfillment of this requirement would be altered slightly from "retrieve" to "being able to retrieve".

FTA_TAH_EXP.1.2 as written also has no meaningful way to present session establishment information. The resolution refines this to report to the interactive users through the application interface information about session establishment successes and failures.

Modification History:

2008-04-08:

PD Created (ODRB February 2008 Agenda Item 3.a.i)

References:

• U.S. Government Protection Profile for Database Management Systems in Basic Robustness Environments, Version 1.1, June 7, 2006.
• CC v3.1r2 Part 2
• CC v3.1r2 Part 3

Related NIs:

• None

Related CCIMB-INTERPs:

• None

Source OD: 0270