A Survey of Network Requirements for Enabling Effective Cyber Deception

In the evolving landscape of cybersecurity, the utilization of cyber deception has gained prominence as a proactive defense strategy against sophisticated attacks. This paper presents a comprehensive survey that investigates the crucial network requirements essential for the successful implementation of effective cyber deception techniques. With a focus on diverse network architectures and topologies, we delve into the intricate relationship between network characteristics and the deployment of deception mechanisms. This survey provides an in-depth analysis of prevailing cyber deception frameworks, highlighting their strengths and limitations in meeting the requirements for optimal efficacy. By synthesizing insights from both theoretical and practical perspectives, we contribute to a comprehensive understanding of the network prerequisites crucial for enabling robust and adaptable cyber deception strategies

Towards the transversal detection of DDoS network attacks in 5G multi-tenant overlay networks

© 2018 Elsevier Ltd Currently, there is no any effective security solution which can detect cyber-attacks against 5G networks where multitenancy and user mobility are some unique characteristics that impose significant challenges over such security solutions. This paper focuses on addressing a transversal detection system to be able to protect at the same time, infrastructures, tenants and 5G users in both edge and core network segments of the 5G multi-tenant infrastructures. A novel approach which significantly extends the capabilities of a commonly used IDS, to accurately identify attacking nodes in a 5G network, regardless of multiple network traffic encapsulations, has been proposed in this paper. The proposed approach is suitable to be deployed in almost all 5G network segments including the Mobile Edge Computing. Both architectural design and data models are described in this contribution. Empirical experiments have been carried out a realistic 5G multi-tenant infrastructures to intensively validate the design of the proposed approach regarding scalability and flexibility

Contribuciones para la Detección de Ataques Distribuidos de Denegación de Servicio (DDoS) en la Capa de Aplicación

Se analizaron seis aspectos sobre la detección de ataques DDoS: técnicas, variables, herramientas, ubicación de implementación, punto en el tiempo y precisión de detección. Este análisis permitió realizar una contribución útil al diseño de una estrategia adecuada para neutralizar estos ataques. En los últimos años, estos ataques se han dirigido hacia la capa de aplicación. Este fenómeno se debe principalmente a la gran cantidad de herramientas para la generación de este tipo de ataque. Por ello, además, en este trabajo se propone una alternativa de detección basada en el dinamismo del usuario web. Para esto, se evaluaron las características del dinamismo del usuario extraídas de las funciones del mouse y del teclado. Finalmente, el presente trabajo propone un enfoque de detección de bajo costo que consta de dos pasos: primero, las características del usuario se extraen en tiempo real mientras se navega por la aplicación web; en segundo lugar, cada característica extraída es utilizada por un algoritmo de orden (O1) para diferenciar a un usuario real de un ataque DDoS. Los resultados de las pruebas con las herramientas de ataque LOIC, OWASP y GoldenEye muestran que el método propuesto tiene una eficacia de detección del 100% y que las características del dinamismo del usuario de la web permiten diferenciar entre un usuario real y un robot

Characterization and Comparison of DDoS Attack Tools and Traffic Generators -A Review

Abstract Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack imposes a severe threat to the extensively used Internet based services like e-commerce, e-banking, transportation, medicine, education etc. Hackers compromises the vulnerable systems for launching DDoS attacks in order to degrade or sometimes completely disrupt such services. In recent years, DDoS attacks have been increased in frequency, sophistication and strength. Though a no. of solutions have been proposed in literature to combat against DDoS attacks but still defending from a DDoS attack is a challenging issue. Hackers are also continuously upgrading their skills to launch diversified attacks and are developing new sophisticated attack tools and traffic generators to circumvent these countermeasures. The purpose of this paper is to characterize and compare the popular DDoS attack tools and traffic generators used by the attackers in recent times. The technical details provided would surely help the researchers to handpick the appropriate DDoS attack tool and traffic generator for designing their real experiments so that their proposed DDoS defense methods could be validated in a better way

Deteção de ataques de negação de serviços distribuídos na origem

From year to year new records of the amount of traffic in an attack are established, which demonstrate not only the constant presence of distributed denialof-service attacks, but also its evolution, demarcating itself from the other network threats. The increasing importance of resource availability alongside the security debate on network devices and infrastructures is continuous, given the preponderant role in both the home and corporate domains. In the face of the constant threat, the latest network security systems have been applying pattern recognition techniques to infer, detect, and react more quickly and assertively. This dissertation proposes methodologies to infer network activities patterns, based on their traffic: follows a behavior previously defined as normal, or if there are deviations that raise suspicions about the normality of the action in the network. It seems that the future of network defense systems continues in this direction, not only by increasing amount of traffic, but also by the diversity of actions, services and entities that reflect different patterns, thus contributing to the detection of anomalous activities on the network. The methodologies propose the collection of metadata, up to the transport layer of the osi model, which will then be processed by the machien learning algorithms in order to classify the underlying action. Intending to contribute beyond denial-of-service attacks and the network domain, the methodologies were described in a generic way, in order to be applied in other scenarios of greater or less complexity. The third chapter presents a proof of concept with attack vectors that marked the history and a few evaluation metrics that allows to compare the different classifiers as to their success rate, given the various activities in the network and inherent dynamics. The various tests show flexibility, speed and accuracy of the various classification algorithms, setting the bar between 90 and 99 percent.De ano para ano são estabelecidos novos recordes de quantidade de tráfego num ataque, que demonstram não só a presença constante de ataques de negação de serviço distribuídos, como também a sua evolução, demarcando-se das outras ameaças de rede. A crescente importância da disponibilidade de recursos a par do debate sobre a segurança nos dispositivos e infraestruturas de rede é contínuo, dado o papel preponderante tanto no dominio doméstico como no corporativo. Face à constante ameaça, os sistemas de segurança de rede mais recentes têm vindo a aplicar técnicas de reconhecimento de padrões para inferir, detetar e reagir de forma mais rápida e assertiva. Esta dissertação propõe metodologias para inferir padrões de atividades na rede, tendo por base o seu tráfego: se segue um comportamento previamente definido como normal, ou se existem desvios que levantam suspeitas sobre normalidade da ação na rede. Tudo indica que o futuro dos sistemas de defesa de rede continuará neste sentido, servindo-se não só do crescente aumento da quantidade de tráfego, como também da diversidade de ações, serviços e entidades que refletem padrões distintos contribuindo assim para a deteção de atividades anómalas na rede. As metodologias propõem a recolha de metadados, até á camada de transporte, que seguidamente serão processados pelos algoritmos de aprendizagem automática com o objectivo de classificar a ação subjacente. Pretendendo que o contributo fosse além dos ataques de negação de serviço e do dominio de rede, as metodologias foram descritas de forma tendencialmente genérica, de forma a serem aplicadas noutros cenários de maior ou menos complexidade. No quarto capítulo é apresentada uma prova de conceito com vetores de ataques que marcaram a história e, algumas métricas de avaliação que permitem comparar os diferentes classificadores quanto à sua taxa de sucesso, face às várias atividades na rede e inerentes dinâmicas. Os vários testes mostram flexibilidade, rapidez e precisão dos vários algoritmos de classificação, estabelecendo a fasquia entre os 90 e os 99 por cento.Mestrado em Engenharia de Computadores e Telemátic

Modeling and control of network traffic for performance and secure communications

The objective of this research is to develop innovative techniques for modeling and control of network congestion. Most existing network controls have discontinuous actions, but such discontinuity in control actions is commonly omitted in analytical models, and instead continuous models were widely adopted in the literature. This approximation works well under certain conditions, but it does cause significant discrepancy in creating robust, responsive control solutions for congestion management. In this dissertation, I investigated three major topics. I proposed a generic discontinuous congestion control model and its design methodology to guarantee asymptotic stability and eliminate traffic oscillation, based on the sliding mode control (SMC) theory. My scheme shows that discontinuity plays a crucial role in optimization of the I-D based congestion control algorithms. When properly modeled, the simple I-D control laws can be made highly robust to parameter and model uncertainties. I discussed applicability of this model to some existing flow or congestion control schemes, e.g. XON/XOFF, rate and window based AIMD, RED, etc. It can also be effectively applied to design of detection and defense of distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks. DDoS management can be considered a special case of the flow control problem. Based on my generic discontinuous congestion control model, I developed a backward-propagation feedback control strategy for DDoS detection and defense. It not only prevents DDoS attacks but also provides smooth traffic and bounded queue size. Another application of the congestion control algorithms is design of private group communication networks. I proposed a new technique for protection of group communications by concealment of sender-recipient pairs. The basic approach is to fragment and disperse encrypted messages into packets to be transported along different paths, so that the adversary cannot efficiently determine the source/recipient of a message without correct ordering of all packets. Packet flows among nodes are made balanced, to eliminate traffic patterns related to group activities. I proposed a sliding window-based flow control scheme to control transmission of payload and dummy packets. My algorithms allow flexible tradeoff between traffic concealment and performance requirement