• Title/Summary/Keyword: cyber-attack surface

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A novel approach for analyzing the nuclear supply chain cyber-attack surface

  • Eggers, Shannon
    • Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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    • v.53 no.3
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    • pp.879-887
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    • 2021
  • The nuclear supply chain attack surface is a large, complex network of interconnected stakeholders and activities. The global economy has widened and deepened the supply chain, resulting in larger numbers of geographically dispersed locations and increased difficulty ensuring the authenticity and security of critical digital assets. Although the nuclear industry has made significant strides in securing facilities from cyber-attacks, the supply chain remains vulnerable. This paper discusses supply chain threats and vulnerabilities that are often overlooked in nuclear cyber supply chain risk analysis. A novel supply chain cyber-attack surface diagram is provided to assist with enumeration of risks and to examine the complex issues surrounding the requirements for securing hardware, firmware, software, and system information throughout the entire supply chain lifecycle. This supply chain cyber-attack surface diagram provides a dashboard that security practitioners and researchers can use to identify gaps in current cyber supply chain practices and develop new risk-informed, cyber supply chain tools and processes.

An Approach for Applying Network-based Moving Target Defense into Internet of Things Networks

  • Park, Tae-Keun;Park, Kyung-Min;Moon, Dae-Sung
    • Journal of the Korea Society of Computer and Information
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    • v.24 no.9
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    • pp.35-42
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    • 2019
  • In this paper, we propose an approach to apply network-based moving target defense into Internet of Things (IoT) networks. The IoT is a technology that provides the high interconnectivity of things like electronic devices. However, cyber security risks are expected to increase as the interconnectivity of such devices increases. One recent study demonstrated a man-in-the-middle attack in the statically configured IoT network. In recent years, a new approach to cyber security, called the moving target defense, has emerged as a potential solution to the challenge of static systems. The approach continuously changes system's attack surface to prevent attacks. After analyzing IPv4 / IPv6-based moving target defense schemes and IoT network-related technologies, we present our approach in terms of addressing systems, address mutation techniques, communication models, network configuration, and node mobility. In addition, we summarize the direction of future research in relation to the proposed approach.

Cyber Kill Chain-Based Taxonomy of Advanced Persistent Threat Actors: Analogy of Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures

  • Bahrami, Pooneh Nikkhah;Dehghantanha, Ali;Dargahi, Tooska;Parizi, Reza M.;Choo, Kim-Kwang Raymond;Javadi, Hamid H.S.
    • Journal of Information Processing Systems
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    • v.15 no.4
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    • pp.865-889
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    • 2019
  • The need for cyber resilience is increasingly important in our technology-dependent society where computing devices and data have been, and will continue to be, the target of cyber-attackers, particularly advanced persistent threat (APT) and nation-state/sponsored actors. APT and nation-state/sponsored actors tend to be more sophisticated, having access to significantly more resources and time to facilitate their attacks, which in most cases are not financially driven (unlike typical cyber-criminals). For example, such threat actors often utilize a broad range of attack vectors, cyber and/or physical, and constantly evolve their attack tactics. Thus, having up-to-date and detailed information of APT's tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) facilitates the design of effective defense strategies as the focus of this paper. Specifically, we posit the importance of taxonomies in categorizing cyber-attacks. Note, however, that existing information about APT attack campaigns is fragmented across practitioner, government (including intelligence/classified), and academic publications, and existing taxonomies generally have a narrow scope (e.g., to a limited number of APT campaigns). Therefore, in this paper, we leverage the Cyber Kill Chain (CKC) model to "decompose" any complex attack and identify the relevant characteristics of such attacks. We then comprehensively analyze more than 40 APT campaigns disclosed before 2018 to build our taxonomy. Such taxonomy can facilitate incident response and cyber threat hunting by aiding in understanding of the potential attacks to organizations as well as which attacks may surface. In addition, the taxonomy can allow national security and intelligence agencies and businesses to share their analysis of ongoing, sensitive APT campaigns without the need to disclose detailed information about the campaigns. It can also notify future security policies and mitigation strategy formulation.

Attack Surface Expansion through Decoy Trap for Protected Servers in Moving Target Defense

  • Park, Tae-Keun;Park, Kyung-Min;Moon, Dae-Sung
    • Journal of the Korea Society of Computer and Information
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    • v.24 no.10
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    • pp.25-32
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    • 2019
  • In this paper, we propose a method to apply the attack surface expansion through decoy traps to a protected server network. The network consists of a large number of decoys and protected servers. In the network, each protected server dynamically mutates its IP address and port numbers based on Hidden Tunnel Networking that is a network-based moving target defense scheme. The moving target defense is a new approach to cyber security and continuously changes system's attack surface to prevent attacks. And, the attack surface expansion is an approach that uses decoys and decoy groups to protect attacks. The proposed method modifies the NAT table of the protected server with a custom chain and a RETURN target in order to make attackers waste all their time and effort in the decoy traps. We theoretically analyze the attacker success rate for the protected server network before and after applying the proposed method. The proposed method is expected to significantly reduce the probability that a protected server will be identified and compromised by attackers.

Cyber Threat and Vulnerability Analysis-based Risk Assessment for Smart Ship

  • Jeoungkyu Lim;Yunja Yoo
    • Journal of the Korean Society of Marine Environment & Safety
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    • v.30 no.3
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    • pp.263-274
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    • 2024
  • The digitization of ship environments has increased the risk of cyberattacks on ships. The smartization and automation of ships are also likely to result in cyber threats. The International Maritime Organization (IMO) has discussed the establishment of regulations at the autonomous level and has revised existing agreements by dividing autonomous ships into four stages, where stages 1 and 2 are for sailors who are boarding ships while stages 3 and 4 are for those not boarding ships. In this study, the level of a smart ship was classified into LEVELs (LVs) 1 to 3 based on the autonomous levels specified by the IMO. Furthermore, a risk assessment for smart ships at various LVs in different risk scenarios was conducted The cyber threats and vulnerabilities of smart ships were analyzed by dividing them into administrative, physical, and technical security; and mitigation measures for each security area were derived. A total of 22 cyber threats were identified for the cyber asset (target system). We inferred that the higher the level of a smart ship, the greater the hyper connectivity and the remote access to operational technology systems; consequently, the greater the attack surface. Therefore, it is necessary to apply mitigation measures using technical security controls in environments with high-level smart ships.

Deriving Essential Security Requirements of IVN through Case Analysis (사례 분석을 통한 IVN의 필수 보안 요구사항 도출)

  • Song, Yun keun;Woo, Samuel;Lee, Jungho;Lee, You sik
    • The Journal of The Korea Institute of Intelligent Transport Systems
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    • v.18 no.2
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    • pp.144-155
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    • 2019
  • One of the issues of the automotive industry today is autonomous driving vehicles. In order to achieve level 3 or higher as defined by SAE International, harmonization of autonomous driving technology and connected technology is essential. Current vehicles have new features such as autonomous driving, which not only increases the number of electrical components, but also the amount and complexity of software. As a result, the attack surface, which is the access point of attack, is widening, and software security vulnerabilities are also increasing. However, the reality is that the essential security requirements for vehicles are not defined. In this paper, based on real attacks and vulnerability cases and trends, we identify the assets in the in-vehicle network and derive the threats. We also defined the security requirements and derived essential security requirements that should be applied at least to the safety of the vehicle occupant through risk analysis.

A Study on the Assessment of Critical Assets Considering the Dependence of Defense Mission (국방 임무 종속성을 고려한 핵심 자산 도출 방안 연구)

  • Kim Joon Seok;Euom Ieck Chae
    • Convergence Security Journal
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    • v.24 no.2
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    • pp.189-200
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    • 2024
  • In recent years, the development of defense technology has become digital with the introduction of advanced assets such as drones equipped with artificial intelligence. These assets are integrated with modern information technologies such as industrial IoT, artificial intelligence, and cloud computing to promote innovation in the defense domain. However, the convergence of the technology is increasing the possibility of transfer of cyber threats, which is emerging as a problem of increasing the vulnerability of defense assets. While the current cybersecurity methodologies focus on the vulnerability of a single asset, interworking of various military assets is necessary to perform the mission. Therefore, this paper recognizes these problems and presents a mission-based asset management and evaluation methodology. It aims to strengthen cyber security in the defense sector by identifying assets that are important for mission execution and analyzing vulnerabilities in terms of cyber security. In this paper, we propose a method of classifying mission dependencies through linkage analysis between functions and assets to perform a mission, and identifying and classifying assets that affect the mission. In addition, a case study of identifying key assets was conducted through an attack scenario.

A Study on the Impact of Applying Network Address Mutation Technology within the Network Protection System (네트워크 보호체계에서 네트워크 주소변이 기술 적용에 대한 영향성 연구)

  • Suwon Lee;Seyoung Hwang;SeukGue Hong
    • Journal of the Korea Institute of Information Security & Cryptology
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    • v.33 no.6
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    • pp.939-946
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    • 2023
  • In the hyper-connected network, which network equipment is diverse and network structure is complex, the attack surface has also increased. In this environment, MTD(Moving Target Defense) technology is being researched as a method to fundamentally defend against cyber attacks by actively changing the attack surface. network-based MTD technologies are being widely studied. However, in order for network address mutation technology to be applied within the existing fixed IP-based system, research is needed to determine what impact it will have. In this paper, we studied the impact of applying network address mutation technology to the existing network protection system. As a result of the study, factors to be considered when firewall, NAC, IPS, and network address mutation technologies are operated together were derived, and elements that must be managed in network address mutation technology for interoperability with the network analysis system were suggested.

Periodic-and-on-Event Message-Aware Automotive Intrusion Detection System (Periodic-and-on-Event 메시지 분석이 가능한 차량용 침입탐지 기술)

  • Lee, Seyoung;Choi, Wonsuk
    • Journal of the Korea Institute of Information Security & Cryptology
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    • v.31 no.3
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    • pp.373-385
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    • 2021
  • To provide convenience and safety of drivers, the recent vehicles are being equipped with a number of electronic control units (ECUs). Multiple ECUs construct a network inside a vehicle to share information related to the vehicle's status; in addition, the CAN protocol is normally applied. As the modern vehicles provide highly convenient and safe services, it provides many types of attack surfaces; as a result, it makes them vulnerable to cyber attacks. The automotive IDS (Intrusion Detection System) is one of the promising techniques for securing vehicles. However, the existing methods for automotive IDS are able to analyze only periodic messages. If someone attacks on non-periodic messages, the existing methods are not able to properly detect the intrusion. In this paper, we present a method to detect intrusions including an attack using non-periodic messages. Moreover, we evaluate our method on the real vehicles, where we show that our method has 0% of FPR and 0% of FNR under our attack model.

Classification Performance Improvement of UNSW-NB15 Dataset Based on Feature Selection (특징선택 기법에 기반한 UNSW-NB15 데이터셋의 분류 성능 개선)

  • Lee, Dae-Bum;Seo, Jae-Hyun
    • Journal of the Korea Convergence Society
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    • v.10 no.5
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    • pp.35-42
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    • 2019
  • Recently, as the Internet and various wearable devices have appeared, Internet technology has contributed to obtaining more convenient information and doing business. However, as the internet is used in various parts, the attack surface points that are exposed to attacks are increasing, Attempts to invade networks aimed at taking unfair advantage, such as cyber terrorism, are also increasing. In this paper, we propose a feature selection method to improve the classification performance of the class to classify the abnormal behavior in the network traffic. The UNSW-NB15 dataset has a rare class imbalance problem with relatively few instances compared to other classes, and an undersampling method is used to eliminate it. We use the SVM, k-NN, and decision tree algorithms and extract a subset of combinations with superior detection accuracy and RMSE through training and verification. The subset has recall values of more than 98% through the wrapper based experiments and the DT_PSO showed the best performance.