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Cyber Attribution: An Argumentation-Based Approach

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Part of the book series: Advances in Information Security ((ADIS,volume 56))

Abstract

Attributing a cyber-operation through the use of multiple pieces of technical evidence (i.e., malware reverse-engineering and source tracking) and conventional intelligence sources (i.e., human or signals intelligence) is a difficult problem not only due to the effort required to obtain evidence, but the ease with which an adversary can plant false evidence. In this paper, we introduce a formal reasoning system called the InCA (Intelligent Cyber Attribution) framework that is designed to aid an analyst in the attribution of a cyber-operation even when the available information is conflicting and/or uncertain. Our approach combines argumentation-based reasoning, logic programming, and probabilistic models to not only attribute an operation but also explain to the analyst why the system reaches its conclusions.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    http://www.symantec.com/connect/blogs/stuxnet-05-disrupting-uranium-processing-natanz.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by UK EPSRC grant EP/J008346/1—“PrOQAW”, ERC grant 246858—“DIADEM”, by NSF grant #1117761, by the National Security Agency under the Science of Security Lablet grant (SoSL), Army Research Office project 2GDATXR042, and DARPA project R.0004972.001.

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Correspondence to Paulo Shakarian .

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Shakarian, P., Simari, G., Moores, G., Parsons, S. (2015). Cyber Attribution: An Argumentation-Based Approach. In: Jajodia, S., Shakarian, P., Subrahmanian, V., Swarup, V., Wang, C. (eds) Cyber Warfare. Advances in Information Security, vol 56. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-14039-1_8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-14039-1_8

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-14038-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-14039-1

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