Abstract
Most intrusion detection systems deployed today apply misuse detection as analysis method. Misuse detection searches for attack traces in the recorded audit data using predefined patterns. The matching rules are called signatures. The definition of signatures is up to now an empirical process based on expert knowledge and experience. The analysis success and accordingly the acceptance of intrusion detection systems in general depend essentially on the topicality of the deployed signatures. Methods for a systematic development of signatures have scarcely been reported yet, so the modeling of a new signature is a time-consuming, cumbersome, and error-prone process. The modeled signatures have to be validated and corrected to improve their quality. So far only signature testing is applied for this. Signature testing is still a rather empirical and time-consuming pro cess to detect modeling errors. In this paper we present the first approach for verifying signature specifications using the Spin model checker. The signatures are modeled in the specification language EDL which leans on colored Petri nets. We show how the signature specification is transformed into a Promela model and how characteristic specification errors can be found by Spin.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Meier, M.: A Model for the Semantics of Attack Signatures in Misuse Detection Systems. In: Zhang, K., Zheng, Y. (eds.) ISC 2004. LNCS, vol. 3225, pp. 158–169. Springer, Heidelberg (2004)
Meier, M., Schmerl, S.: Improving the Efficiency of Misuse Detection. In: Julisch, K., Krügel, C. (eds.) DIMVA 2005. LNCS, vol. 3548, pp. 188–205. Springer, Heidelberg (2005)
Vigna, G., Eckmann, S.T., Kemmerer, R.A.: The STAT Tool Suite. In: Proceedings of DARPA Information Survivability Conference and Exposition (DISCEX) 2000, vol. 2, pp. 46–55. IEEE Computer Society Press, Hilton Head (2000)
Schmerl, S., König, H.: Towards Systematic Signature Testing. In: Petrenko, A., Veanes, M., Tretmans, J., Grieskamp, W. (eds.) TestCom/FATES 2007. LNCS, vol. 4581, pp. 276–291. Springer, Heidelberg (2007)
Eckmann, S.T., Vigna, G., Kemmerer, R.A.: STATL: An Attack Language for State-based Intrusion Detection. Journal of Computer Security 10(1/2), 71–104 (2002)
Paxson, V.: Bro - A System for Detecting Network Intruders in Real-Time. Computer Networks 31, 23–24 (1999)
Kumar S.: Classification and Detection of Computer Intrusions. PhD Thesis, Department of Computer Science, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA (August 1995)
Ranum, M.J.: Challenges for the Future of Intrusion Detection. In: 5th International Symposium on Recent Advances in Intrusion Detection (RAID), Zürich (2002) (invited Talk)
Finite domain solver: http://www.gprolog.org/manual/html_node/index.html
GNU PROLOG: http://www.gprolog.org/manual/html_node/index.html
Holzmann, J.G.: The SPIN Model Checker: Primer and Reference Manual. Addison-Wesley Professional, Reading (2003)
Nanda, S., Chiueh, T.: Execution Trace-Driven Automated Attack Signature Generation. In: Proceedings of 24th Annual Computer Security Applications Conference (AC-SAC), Anaheim, CA, USA, pp. 195–204. IEEE Computer Society, Los Alamitos (2008)
Liang, Z., Sekar, R.: Fast and Automated Generation of Attack Signatures: A Basis for Building Self-Protecting Servers. In: Proceedings of 12th ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security (CCS), Alexandria, VA (November 2005)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2009 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Schmerl, S., Vogel, M., König, H. (2009). Identifying Modeling Errors in Signatures by Model Checking. In: Păsăreanu, C.S. (eds) Model Checking Software. SPIN 2009. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 5578. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-02652-2_18
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-02652-2_18
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-02651-5
Online ISBN: 978-3-642-02652-2
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)