Multiple Independent Levels of Security (MILS)

Multiple Independent Levels of Security (MILS) is a security architecture based on separation of functionality and control of information flow. According to Harrison et al. (2005):

Multiple Independent Levels of Security and Safety (MILS) is a joint research effort between academia, industry, and government to develop and implement a high-assurance, real-time architecture for embedded systems. The goal of the MILS architecture is to ensure that all system security policies are nonbypassable, evaluatable, always invoked, and tamper-proof. Using these formally proven security policies guarantees information flow control, data isolation, predictable process control, damage limitation, and resource availability.

MILS is implemented using mechanisms built in the kernels and middleware components to create authorized communication paths (Harrison et al., 2005).

References

Harrison, S. W., Hanebutte, N., Oman, P. W., & Alves-Foss, J. (2005, October). The MILS architecture for a secure global information grid. Journal of Software Engineering. http://static1.1.sqspcdn.com/static/f/702523/9277782/1288928922607/200510-Harrison.pdf?token=F%2B8Wfg1xFsXYDlE8inVd55i5Ml0%3D