Scalable attack propagation model and algorithms for honeypot systems

Ariel Bar, Bracha Shapira, Lior Rokach, Moshe Unger

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

Abstract

Attack propagation models within honeypot systems aim at providing insights about attack strategies that target multiple honeypots, rather than analyzing attacks on each honeypot separately. Traditional attack propagation models focus on building a single probabilistic model. This modeling approach may be misleading, since it does not take into consideration contextual information such as the country from which the attack is initiated. In addition, with the massive increase in the magnitude of attacks on honeypots, a scalable modeling approach is required. In this work we present a novel attack propagation model that can utilize contextual information about the attacks by training multiple Markov Chain models. Moreover, we add additional layers of analysis: first, we present a likelihood estimation procedure that can identify new and evolving attack patterns; and second, we introduce a method for generating simulated attack sequences that can be used for training or sensitivity analysis. Lastly, we present, in details, a MapReduce design for all suggested algorithms in order to address scalability issues. We evaluate our methods on a massive dataset which includes approximately 170 million attacks on an operational honeypot system. Results indicate that contextual modeling is important for explaining attack propagation that may vary by country. In addition, we show the effectiveness of the suggested method for generating simulated sequences by comparing the attack propagation patterns we learned in the generated dataset and the original one. Finally, we demonstrate the scalability of all of the proposed algorithms on real and synthetic datasets that include over a billion records.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationProceedings - 2016 IEEE International Conference on Big Data, Big Data 2016
EditorsRonay Ak, George Karypis, Yinglong Xia, Xiaohua Tony Hu, Philip S. Yu, James Joshi, Lyle Ungar, Ling Liu, Aki-Hiro Sato, Toyotaro Suzumura, Sudarsan Rachuri, Rama Govindaraju, Weijia Xu
PublisherInstitute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
Pages1130-1135
Number of pages6
ISBN (Electronic)9781467390040
DOIs
StatePublished - 2016
Externally publishedYes
Event4th IEEE International Conference on Big Data, Big Data 2016 - Washington, United States
Duration: 5 Dec 20168 Dec 2016

Publication series

NameProceedings - 2016 IEEE International Conference on Big Data, Big Data 2016

Conference

Conference4th IEEE International Conference on Big Data, Big Data 2016
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityWashington
Period5/12/168/12/16

Keywords

  • Attack Propagation
  • Cyber Security
  • Honeypots
  • MapReduce
  • Markov Chains
  • Random Walk

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