Publications
2015
Ekelhart, Andreas; Kiesling, Elmar; Grill, Bernhard; Strauss, Christine; Stummer, Christian
Integrating attacker behavior in IT security analysis: a discrete-event simulation approach Artikel
In: Information Technology & Management, Bd. 16, Nr. 3, S. 221–233, 2015, ISSN: 1385-951X, (Publisher Copyright: textcopyright 2015, Springer Science+Business Media New York.).
Abstract | Links | BibTeX | Schlagwörter: Attacker behavior, BWL, CMI, GRAPHS, IT security, Modeling and simulation, Secure systems analysis and design, SYSTEMS, TREES
@article{daf5657a17694301956244c51bb7b5c8,
title = {Integrating attacker behavior in IT security analysis: a discrete-event simulation approach},
author = {Andreas Ekelhart and Elmar Kiesling and Bernhard Grill and Christine Strauss and Christian Stummer},
doi = {10.1007/s10799-015-0232-6},
issn = {1385-951X},
year = {2015},
date = {2015-09-01},
journal = {Information Technology & Management},
volume = {16},
number = {3},
pages = {221--233},
abstract = {When designing secure information systems, a profound understanding of the threats that they are exposed to is indispensable. Today’s most severe risks come from malicious threat agents exploiting a variety of attack vectors to achieve their goals, rather than from random opportunistic threats such as malware. Most security analyses, however, focus on fixing technical weaknesses, but do not account for sophisticated combinations of attack mechanisms and heterogeneity in adversaries’ motivations, resources, capabilities, or points of access. In order to address these shortcomings and, thus, to provide security analysts with a tool that makes it possible to also identify emergent weaknesses that may arise from dynamic interactions of attacks, we have combined rich conceptual modeling of security knowledge with attack graph generation and discrete-event simulation techniques. This paper describes the prototypical implementation of the resulting security analysis tool and demonstrates how it can be used for an experimental evaluation of a system’s resilience against various adversaries.},
note = {Publisher Copyright: textcopyright 2015, Springer Science+Business Media New York.},
keywords = {Attacker behavior, BWL, CMI, GRAPHS, IT security, Modeling and simulation, Secure systems analysis and design, SYSTEMS, TREES},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {article}
}
When designing secure information systems, a profound understanding of the threats that they are exposed to is indispensable. Today’s most severe risks come from malicious threat agents exploiting a variety of attack vectors to achieve their goals, rather than from random opportunistic threats such as malware. Most security analyses, however, focus on fixing technical weaknesses, but do not account for sophisticated combinations of attack mechanisms and heterogeneity in adversaries’ motivations, resources, capabilities, or points of access. In order to address these shortcomings and, thus, to provide security analysts with a tool that makes it possible to also identify emergent weaknesses that may arise from dynamic interactions of attacks, we have combined rich conceptual modeling of security knowledge with attack graph generation and discrete-event simulation techniques. This paper describes the prototypical implementation of the resulting security analysis tool and demonstrates how it can be used for an experimental evaluation of a system’s resilience against various adversaries.