1,709 research outputs found
Employing Opportunistic Diversity for Detecting Injection Attacks in Web Applications
Web-based applications are becoming increasingly popular due to less demand of client-side resources
and easier maintenance than desktop counterparts. On the other hand, larger attack surfaces
and developers’ lack of security proficiency or awareness leave Web applications particularly vulnerable
to security attacks. One existing approach to preventing security attacks is to compose
a redundant system using functionally similar but internally different variants, which will likely
respond to the same attack in different ways. However, most diversity-by-design approaches are
rarely used in practice due to the implied cost in development and maintenance, significant false
alarm rate is also another limitation. In this work, we employ opportunistic diversity inherent
to Web applications and their database backends to prevent injection attacks. We first conduct a
case study of common vulnerabilities to confirm the effectiveness of opportunistic diversity for
preventing potential attacks. We then devise a multi-stage approach to examine database queries,
their effect on the database, query results, and user-end results. Next, we combine the results
obtained from different stages using a learning-based approach to further improve the detection
accuracy. Finally, we evaluate our approach using a real world Web application
Hyp3rArmor: reducing web application exposure to automated attacks
Web applications (webapps) are subjected constantly to automated, opportunistic attacks from autonomous robots (bots) engaged in reconnaissance to discover victims that may be vulnerable to specific exploits. This is a typical behavior found in botnet recruitment, worm propagation, largescale fingerprinting and vulnerability scanners. Most anti-bot techniques are deployed at the application layer, thus leaving the network stack of the webapp’s server exposed. In this paper we present a mechanism called Hyp3rArmor, that addresses this vulnerability by minimizing the webapp’s attack surface exposed to automated opportunistic attackers, for JavaScriptenabled web browser clients. Our solution uses port knocking to eliminate the webapp’s visible network footprint. Clients of the webapp are directed to a visible static web server to obtain JavaScript that authenticates the client to the webapp server (using port knocking) before making any requests to the webapp. Our implementation of Hyp3rArmor, which is compatible with all webapp architectures, has been deployed and used to defend single and multi-page websites on the Internet for 114 days. During this time period the static web server observed 964 attempted attacks that were deflected from the webapp, which was only accessed by authenticated clients. Our evaluation shows that in most cases client-side overheads were negligible and that server-side overheads were minimal. Hyp3rArmor is ideal for critical systems and legacy applications that must be accessible on the Internet. Additionally Hyp3rArmor is composable with other security tools, adding an additional layer to a defense in depth approach.This work has been supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) awards #1430145, #1414119, and #1012798
Recommended from our members
Evaluating the resilience and security of boundaryless, evolving socio-technical Systems of Systems
A Survey on Wireless Security: Technical Challenges, Recent Advances and Future Trends
This paper examines the security vulnerabilities and threats imposed by the
inherent open nature of wireless communications and to devise efficient defense
mechanisms for improving the wireless network security. We first summarize the
security requirements of wireless networks, including their authenticity,
confidentiality, integrity and availability issues. Next, a comprehensive
overview of security attacks encountered in wireless networks is presented in
view of the network protocol architecture, where the potential security threats
are discussed at each protocol layer. We also provide a survey of the existing
security protocols and algorithms that are adopted in the existing wireless
network standards, such as the Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, WiMAX, and the long-term
evolution (LTE) systems. Then, we discuss the state-of-the-art in
physical-layer security, which is an emerging technique of securing the open
communications environment against eavesdropping attacks at the physical layer.
We also introduce the family of various jamming attacks and their
counter-measures, including the constant jammer, intermittent jammer, reactive
jammer, adaptive jammer and intelligent jammer. Additionally, we discuss the
integration of physical-layer security into existing authentication and
cryptography mechanisms for further securing wireless networks. Finally, some
technical challenges which remain unresolved at the time of writing are
summarized and the future trends in wireless security are discussed.Comment: 36 pages. Accepted to Appear in Proceedings of the IEEE, 201
Classifying network attack scenarios using an ontology
This paper presents a methodology using network attack ontology to classify computer-based attacks. Computer network attacks differ in motivation, execution and end result. Because attacks are diverse, no standard classification exists. If an attack could be classified, it could be mitigated accordingly. A taxonomy of computer network attacks forms the basis of the ontology. Most published taxonomies present an attack from either the attacker's or defender's point of view. This taxonomy presents both views. The main taxonomy classes are: Actor, Actor Location, Aggressor, Attack Goal, Attack Mechanism, Attack Scenario, Automation Level, Effects, Motivation, Phase, Scope and Target. The "Actor" class is the entity executing the attack. The "Actor Location" class is the Actor‟s country of origin. The "Aggressor" class is the group instigating an attack. The "Attack Goal" class specifies the attacker‟s goal. The "Attack Mechanism" class defines the attack methodology. The "Automation Level" class indicates the level of human interaction. The "Effects" class describes the consequences of an attack. The "Motivation" class specifies incentives for an attack. The "Scope" class describes the size and utility of the target. The "Target" class is the physical device or entity targeted by an attack. The "Vulnerability" class describes a target vulnerability used by the attacker. The "Phase" class represents an attack model that subdivides an attack into different phases. The ontology was developed using an "Attack Scenario" class, which draws from other classes and can be used to characterize and classify computer network attacks. An "Attack Scenario" consists of phases, has a scope and is attributed to an actor and aggressor which have a goal. The "Attack Scenario" thus represents different classes of attacks. High profile computer network attacks such as Stuxnet and the Estonia attacks can now be been classified through the “Attack Scenario” class
Machine Learning-Enabled IoT Security: Open Issues and Challenges Under Advanced Persistent Threats
Despite its technological benefits, Internet of Things (IoT) has cyber
weaknesses due to the vulnerabilities in the wireless medium. Machine learning
(ML)-based methods are widely used against cyber threats in IoT networks with
promising performance. Advanced persistent threat (APT) is prominent for
cybercriminals to compromise networks, and it is crucial to long-term and
harmful characteristics. However, it is difficult to apply ML-based approaches
to identify APT attacks to obtain a promising detection performance due to an
extremely small percentage among normal traffic. There are limited surveys to
fully investigate APT attacks in IoT networks due to the lack of public
datasets with all types of APT attacks. It is worth to bridge the
state-of-the-art in network attack detection with APT attack detection in a
comprehensive review article. This survey article reviews the security
challenges in IoT networks and presents the well-known attacks, APT attacks,
and threat models in IoT systems. Meanwhile, signature-based, anomaly-based,
and hybrid intrusion detection systems are summarized for IoT networks. The
article highlights statistical insights regarding frequently applied ML-based
methods against network intrusion alongside the number of attacks types
detected. Finally, open issues and challenges for common network intrusion and
APT attacks are presented for future research.Comment: ACM Computing Surveys, 2022, 35 pages, 10 Figures, 8 Table
- …