Modelling Security of Critical Infrastructures: A Survivability Assessment

Critical infrastructures, usually designed to handle disruptions caused by human errors or random acts of nature, define assets whose normal operation must be guaranteed to maintain its essential services for human daily living. Malicious intended attacks to these targets need to be considered during system design. To face these situations, defence plans must be developed in advance. In this paper, we present a Unified Modelling Language profile, named SecAM, that enables the modelling and security specification for critical infrastructures during the early phases (requirements, design) of system development life cycle. SecAM enables security assessment, through survivability analysis, of different security solutions before system deployment. As a case study, we evaluate the survivability of the Saudi Arabia crude-oil network under two different attack scenarios. The stochastic analysis, carried out with Generalized Stochastic Petri nets, quantitatively estimates the minimization of attack damages on the crude-oil network

Malicious botnet survivability mechanism evolution forecasting by means of a genetic algorithm

Botnets are considered to be among the most dangerous modern malware types and the biggest current threats to global IT infrastructure. Botnets are rapidly evolving, and therefore forecasting their survivability strategies is important for the development of countermeasure techniques. The article propose the botnet-oriented genetic algorithm based model framework, which aimed at forecasting botnet survivability mechanisms. The model may be used as a framework for forecasting the evolution of other characteristics. The efficiency of different survivability mechanisms is evaluated by applying the proposed fitness function. The model application area also covers scientific botnet research and modelling tasks. Article in English. Kenkėjiškų botnet tinklų išgyvenamumo mechanizmų evoliucijos prognozavimas genetinio algoritmo priemonėmis Santrauka. Botnet tinklai pripažįstami kaip vieni pavojingiausių šiuolaikinių kenksmingų programų ir vertinami kaip viena iš didžiausių grėsmių tarptautinei IT infrastruktūrai. Botnettinklai greitai evoliucionuoja, todėl jų savisaugos mechanizmų evoliucijos prognozavimas yra svarbus planuojant ir kuriant kontrpriemones. Šiame straipsnyje pateikiamas genetiniu algoritmu pagrįstas modelis, skirtas Botnet tinklų savisaugos mechanizmų evoliucijai prognozuoti, kuris taip pat gali būti naudojamas kaip pagrindas kitų Botnet tinklų savybių evoliucijai modeliuoti. Skirtingi savisaugos mechanizmai vertinami taikant siūlomą tinkamumo funkciją. Raktiniai žodžiai: Botnet; genetinis algoritmas; prognozė; savisauga; evoliucija; modeli

Correlated Node Behavior Model based on Semi Markov Process for MANETS

This paper introduces a new model for node behavior namely Correlated Node Behavior Model which is an extension of Node Behavior Model. The model adopts semi Markov process in continuous time which clusters the node that has correlation. The key parameter of the process is determined by five probabilistic parameters based on the Markovian model. Computed from the transition probabilities of the semi-Markov process, the node correlation impact on network survivability and resilience can be measure quantitatively. From the result, the quantitative analysis of correlated node behavior on the survivability is obtained through mathematical description, and the effectiveness and rationality of the proposed model are verified through numerical analysis. The analytical results show that the effect from correlated failure nodes on network survivability is much severer than other misbehaviors

Correlated Node Behavior Model based on Semi Markov Process for MANETS

This paper introduces a new model for node behavior namely Correlated Node Behavior Model which is an extension of Node Behavior Model. The model adopts semi Markov process in continuous time which clusters the node that has correlation. The key parameter of the process is determined by five probabilistic parameters based on the Markovian model. Computed from the transition probabilities of the semi-Markov process, the node correlation impact on network survivability and resilience can be measure quantitatively. From the result, the quantitative analysis of correlated node behavior on the survivability is obtained through mathematical description, and the effectiveness and rationality of the proposed model are verified through numerical analysis. The analytical results show that the effect from correlated failure nodes on network survivability is much severer than other misbehaviors.Comment: IJCSI Volume 9, Issue 1, January 201

Model-Based Mitigation of Availability Risks

The assessment and mitigation of risks related to the availability of the IT infrastructure is becoming increasingly important in modern organizations. Unfortunately, present standards for Risk Assessment and Mitigation show limitations when evaluating and mitigating availability risks. This is due to the fact that they do not fully consider the dependencies between the constituents of an IT infrastructure that are paramount in large enterprises. These dependencies make the technical problem of assessing availability issues very challenging. In this paper we define a method and a tool for carrying out a Risk Mitigation activity which allows to assess the global impact of a set of risks and to choose the best set of countermeasures to cope with them. To this end, the presence of a tool is necessary due to the high complexity of the assessment problem. Our approach can be integrated in present Risk Management methodologies (e.g. COBIT) to provide a more precise Risk Mitigation activity. We substantiate the viability of this approach by showing that most of the input required by the tool is available as part of a standard business continuity plan, and/or by performing a common tool-assisted Risk Management