Assessing Security Risk to a Network Using a Statistical Model of Attacker Community Competence

We propose a novel approach for statistical risk modeling of network attacks that lets an operator perform risk analysis using a data model and an impact model on top of an attack graph in combination with a statistical model of the attacker community exploitation skill. The data model describes how data flows between nodes in the network – how it is copied and processed by softwares and hosts – while the impact model models how exploitation of vulnerabilities affects the data flows with respect to the confidentiality, integrity and availability of the data. In addition, by assigning a loss value to a compromised data set, we can estimate the cost of a successful attack. The statistical model lets us incorporate real-time monitor data from a honeypot in the risk calculation. The exploitation skill distribution is inferred by first classifying each vulnerability into a required exploitation skill-level category, then mapping each skill-level into a distribution over the require...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2009
• Where: ICICS
• Authors: Tomas Olsson
• Keywords: Communications, Data Model, Exploitation Skill, ICICS 2009, Impact Model