Sock: A Clock-Based Modeling Language to Specify Secure Periodic Real-Time Tasks

By: Stéphanie Challita, Benoit Combemale

Abstract

Nowadays, global connectivity generates tremendous amounts of data and increases the need for Real-Time Systems (RTS). These systems consist of hardware and software components that execute tasks under strict timing constraints and are used in a wide variety of applications, such as connected vehicles, smart homes, e-health, and Industry 4.0. While RTS offer enormous opportunities to improve our lives, they also introduce significant security risks. However, the literature has largely neglected time-aware security in periodic task-based RTS, even though time is a crucial factor that directly affects system security. To address this gap, we propose Sock, a clock-based modeling language and toolchain that enables developers to design, execute, and reason about periodic task-based RTS. The operational semantics of Sock are specified using finite state machines equipped with logical clocks for tasks and resource operations. Sock allows the analysis of schedulability and the observation of security-related properties. It integrates confidentiality-preserving mechanisms and supports the simulation of temporal attacks and countermeasures. We evaluate Sock through a set of synthetic task sets and a realistic automotive-inspired case study on which we executed temporal attacks, and show that Sock preserves task schedulability and confidentiality, and reveals abnormal system behavior.

Keywords

Real-Time Systems, Periodic Tasks, Domain-Specific Modeling Language, EMF, Logical Time

Cite as:

Stéphanie Challita, Benoit Combemale, “Sock: A Clock-Based Modeling Language to Specify Secure Periodic Real-Time Tasks”, Journal of Object Technology, Volume 25, no. 3 ( 2026), pp. 3:57-70, doi:10.5381/jot.2026.25.3.a5.