A Survey on Enterprise Network Security: Asset Behavioral Monitoring and Distributed Attack Detection

Enterprise networks that host valuable assets and services are popular and frequent targets of distributed network attacks. In order to cope with the ever-increasing threats, industrial and research communities develop systems and methods to monitor the behaviors of their assets and protect them from critical attacks. In this paper, we systematically survey related research articles and industrial systems to highlight the current status of this arms race in enterprise network security. First, we discuss the taxonomy of distributed network attacks on enterprise assets, including distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) and reconnaissance attacks. Second, we review existing methods in monitoring and classifying network behavior of enterprise hosts to verify their benign activities and isolate potential anomalies. Third, state-of-the-art detection methods for distributed network attacks sourced from external attackers are elaborated, highlighting their merits and bottlenecks. Fourth, as programmable networks and machine learning (ML) techniques are increasingly becoming adopted by the community, their current applications in network security are discussed. Finally, we highlight several research gaps on enterprise network security to inspire future research.Comment: Journal paper submitted to Elseive

Defence against Denial of Service (DoS) attacks using Identifier-Locator Network Protocol (ILNP) and Domain Name System (DNS)

This research considered a novel approach to network security by combining a new networking architecture based on the Identifier-Locator Network Protocol (ILNP) and the existing Domain Name System (DNS). Specifically, the investigations considered the mitigation of network-level and transport-level based Denial of Service (DoS) attacks. The solutions presented for DoS are applicable to secure servers that are visible externally from an enterprise network. DoS was chosen as an area of concern because in recent years DoS has become the most common and hard to defend against attacks. The novelty of this approach was to consider the way the DNS and ILNP can work together, transparently to the application, within an enterprise scenario. This was achieved by the introduction of a new application-level access control function - the Capability Management System (CMS) - which applies configuration at the application level (DNS data) and network level (ILNP namespaces). CMS provides dynamic, ephemeral identity and location information to clients and servers, in order to effectively partition legitimate traffic from attack traffic. This was achieved without modifying existing network components such as switches and routers and making standard use of existing functions, such as access control lists, and DNS servers, all within a single trust domain that is under the control of the enterprise. The prime objectives of this research were: • to defend against DoS attacks with the use of naming and DNS within an enterprise scenario. • to increase the attacker’s effort in launching a successful DoS attack. • to reduce the visibility of vulnerabilities that can be discovered by an attacker by active probing approaches. • to practically demonstrate the effectiveness of ILNP and DNS working together to provide a solution for DoS mitigation. The solution methodology is based on the use of network and transport level capabilities, dynamic changes to DNS data, and a Moving Target Defence (MTD) paradigm. There are three solutions presented which use ILNP namespaces. These solutions are referred to as identifier-based, locator-based, and combined identifier-locator based solutions, respectively. ILNP-based node identity values were used to provide transport-level per-client server capabilities, thereby providing per-client isolation of traffic. ILNP locator values were used to allow a provision of network-level traffic separation for externally accessible enterprise services. Then, the identifier and locator solutions were combined, showing the possibility of protecting the services, with per-client traffic control and topological traffic path separation. All solutions were site-based solutions and did not require any modification in the core/external network, or the active cooperation of an ISP, therefore limiting the trust domain to the enterprise itself. Experiments were conducted to evaluate all the solutions on a test-bed consisting of off-the-shelf hardware, open-source software, an implementation of the CMS written in C, all running on Linux. The discussion includes considering the efficacy of the solutions, comparisons with existing methods, the performance of each solution, and critical analysis highlighting future improvements that could be made

Compilation of thesis abstracts, September 2009

NPS Class of September 2009This quarter’s Compilation of Abstracts summarizes cutting-edge, security-related research conducted by NPS students and presented as theses, dissertations, and capstone reports. Each expands knowledge in its field.http://archive.org/details/compilationofsis109452751

Implementation of ISO Frameworks to Risk Management in IPv6 Security

The Internet of Things is a technology wave sweeping across various industries and sectors. It promises to improve productivity and efficiency by providing new services and data to users. However, the full potential of this technology is still not realized due to the transition to IPv6 as a backbone. Despite the security assurances that IPv6 provides, privacy and concerns about the Internet of Things remain. This is why it is important that organizations thoroughly understand the protocol and its migration to ensure that they are equipped to take advantage of its many benefits. Due to the lack of available IPv4 addresses, organizations are in an uncertain situation when it comes to implementing IoT technologies. The other aim is to fill in the gaps left by the ISO to identify and classify the risks that are not yet apparent. The thesis seeks to establish and implement the use of ISO to manage risks. It will also help to align security efforts with organizational goals. The proposed solution is evaluated through a survey that is designed to gather feedback from various levels of security and risk management professionals. The suggested modifications are also included in the study. A survey on the implementation of ISO frameworks to risk management in IPv6 was conducted and with results as shown in the random sampling technique that was used for conducting the research a total of 75 questionnaires were shared online, 50 respondents returned responses online through emails and social media platforms. The result of the analysis shows that system admin has the highest pooling 26% of all the overall participants, followed by network admin with 20%, then cybersecurity specialists with 16%. 14% of the respondents were network architects while senior management and risk management professionals were 4% and 2% respectively. The majority of the respondents agreed that risk treatment enhances the risk management performance of the IPv6 network resulting from the proper selection and implementation of correct risk prevention strategies

Attacking and securing Network Time Protocol

Network Time Protocol (NTP) is used to synchronize time between computer systems communicating over unreliable, variable-latency, and untrusted network paths. Time is critical for many applications; in particular it is heavily utilized by cryptographic protocols. Despite its importance, the community still lacks visibility into the robustness of the NTP ecosystem itself, the integrity of the timing information transmitted by NTP, and the impact that any error in NTP might have upon the security of other protocols that rely on timing information. In this thesis, we seek to accomplish the following broad goals: 1. Demonstrate that the current design presents a security risk, by showing that network attackers can exploit NTP and then use it to attack other core Internet protocols that rely on time. 2. Improve NTP to make it more robust, and rigorously analyze the security of the improved protocol. 3. Establish formal and precise security requirements that should be satisfied by a network time-synchronization protocol, and prove that these are sufficient for the security of other protocols that rely on time. We take the following approach to achieve our goals incrementally. 1. We begin by (a) scrutinizing NTP's core protocol (RFC 5905) and (b) statically analyzing code of its reference implementation to identify vulnerabilities in protocol design, ambiguities in specifications, and flaws in reference implementations. We then leverage these observations to show several off- and on-path denial-of-service and time-shifting attacks on NTP clients. We then show cache-flushing and cache-sticking attacks on DNS(SEC) that leverage NTP. We quantify the attack surface using Internet measurements, and suggest simple countermeasures that can improve the security of NTP and DNS(SEC). 2. Next we move beyond identifying attacks and leverage ideas from Universal Composability (UC) security framework to develop a cryptographic model for attacks on NTP's datagram protocol. We use this model to prove the security of a new backwards-compatible protocol that correctly synchronizes time in the face of both off- and on-path network attackers. 3. Next, we propose general security notions for network time-synchronization protocols within the UC framework and formulate ideal functionalities that capture a number of prevalent forms of time measurement within existing systems. We show how they can be realized by real-world protocols (including but not limited to NTP), and how they can be used to assert security of time-reliant applications-specifically, cryptographic certificates with revocation and expiration times. Our security framework allows for a clear and modular treatment of the use of time in security-sensitive systems. Our work makes the core NTP protocol and its implementations more robust and secure, thus improving the security of applications and protocols that rely on time

Cyber Attack Surface Mapping For Offensive Security Testing

Security testing consists of automated processes, like Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST) and Static Application Security Testing (SAST), as well as manual offensive security testing, like Penetration Testing and Red Teaming. This nonautomated testing is frequently time-constrained and difficult to scale. Previous literature suggests that most research is spent in support of improving fully automated processes or in finding specific vulnerabilities, with little time spent improving the interpretation of the scanned attack surface critical to nonautomated testing. In this work, agglomerative hierarchical clustering is used to compress the Internet-facing hosts of 13 representative companies as collected by the Shodan search engine, resulting in an average 89% reduction in attack surface complexity. The work is then extended to map network services and also analyze the characteristics of the Log4Shell security vulnerability and its impact on attack surface mapping. The results highlighted outliers indicative of possible anti-patterns as well as opportunities to improve how testers and tools map the web attack surface. Ultimately the work is extended to compress web attack surfaces based on security relevant features, demonstrating via accuracy measurements not only that this compression is feasible but can also be automated. In the process a framework is created which could be extended in future work to compress other attack surfaces, including physical structures/campuses for physical security testing and even humans for social engineering tests

The InfoSec Handbook

Computer scienc

The InfoSec Handbook

Computer scienc

The Proceedings of 15th Australian Information Security Management Conference, 5-6 December, 2017, Edith Cowan University, Perth, Australia

Conference Foreword The annual Security Congress, run by the Security Research Institute at Edith Cowan University, includes the Australian Information Security and Management Conference. Now in its fifteenth year, the conference remains popular for its diverse content and mixture of technical research and discussion papers. The area of information security and management continues to be varied, as is reflected by the wide variety of subject matter covered by the papers this year. The papers cover topics from vulnerabilities in “Internet of Things” protocols through to improvements in biometric identification algorithms and surveillance camera weaknesses. The conference has drawn interest and papers from within Australia and internationally. All submitted papers were subject to a double blind peer review process. Twenty two papers were submitted from Australia and overseas, of which eighteen were accepted for final presentation and publication. We wish to thank the reviewers for kindly volunteering their time and expertise in support of this event. We would also like to thank the conference committee who have organised yet another successful congress. Events such as this are impossible without the tireless efforts of such people in reviewing and editing the conference papers, and assisting with the planning, organisation and execution of the conference. To our sponsors, also a vote of thanks for both the financial and moral support provided to the conference. Finally, thank you to the administrative and technical staff, and students of the ECU Security Research Institute for their contributions to the running of the conference

Advancing User Authentication and Access Management

In order for online systems to transact business or exchange other sensitive information, there must be an environment where the parties involved can verify that the other is who they claim to be. Authentication mechanisms provide this verification process, thereby, improving confidence in the confidentiality and integrity of communications. However, attackers can exploit this trust if they are able to successfully impersonate a legitimate user and gain access to the system with all the rights and privileges of that user. One particularly difficult class of attacks of this sort involves an attacker inserting themselves between the end user and the system they are communicating with. This man-in-the-middle (MITM) scenario affords the attacker access to passwords, transaction details and other sensitive information, which they may then modify or use to suit their purposes resulting in identity theft, information compromise and misappropriation of funds via electronic transfer, among other scenarios. Current solutions are able to mitigate some of this risk, but more work is needed here given the difficulty in detecting MITM attacks. This thesis deals generally with the subject of identity and access management with a specific focus in the area of authentication within an IT system. The research described here provide new approaches to user-centric and transaction-centric authentication as well as capabilities to improve support for the broader authentication system. The first category of user-centric improvements involves mechanisms which: - leverage a communications side channel so that the user can know with greater certainty that the website they are interacting with is the one they intend, - allow a service provider to detect a MITM by determining the user’s geographical location is consistent across multiple channels, - allow for the detection of a MITM through an out of band voice prompt presented to the user and - improve confidence that a user is who they claim to be by dynamically verifying that they are geographically where they are expected to be even when traveling. The second category of transaction-centric improvements involves mechanisms which leverage out of band communications to verify transaction details have not been tampered with through: - a voice call in which transaction amounts, accounts, etc. are read aloud to the user for confirmation and - a specially constructed QR code which contains these details and can be verified with a purpose-built mobile app. The third category of broader authentication system support mechanisms which: - detect a MITM attack by recognizing changes in login traffic patterns, - detect rogue domain name service providers which might attempt to redirect traffic to attacker websites, - allow for non-disruptive, secure migration of users across authentication systems and - allow for a secure means to regain access to a mobile device for which the passcode has been lost. This research consists of a body of published works, most of which have taken the form of patent filings, which have been peer reviewed and granted by the US Patent and Trademark Office