1. Incident Object Description and Exchange Format
TF-CSIRT at TERENA
IODEF Editorial Group
Jimmy Arvidsson
Andrew Cormack
Yuri Demchenko
Jan Meijer

2. Incident object Description and Exchange Format
Outlines
TERENA TF-CSIRT and Incident Taxonomy and Description WG - History
IODEF Documents
Discussion of IODEF Requirements Draft – draft-terena-itdwg-iodef-requirements-00.txt
IODEF Model
IODEF XML DTD
How to proceed?
Relation to IDWG
Pilot implementation between CSIRTs (primarily European)
Other documents/areas of interest
Evidence Collection and Archiving (currently - draft-ietf-grip-prot-evidence-01.txt) and further standardisation
©2000. Yu.Demchenko. TERENA
Incident object Description and Exchange Format

3. Incident Taxonomy and Description WG at TERENA TF-CSIRT - History
Established at BoF and Seminar at 3rd CERT-COORD meeting on May 11-12, 2000 in Vienna
Webpage and charter -
mailing list -
Archive -
Seminar on IODEF – September 28, 2000, Paris
Next meeting – January 18-19, 2001, Barcelona
IODEF BoF at 12th FIRST Conference in Chicago
30 attendees
established mailing list
Archive -
©2000. Yu.Demchenko. TERENA
Incident object Description and Exchange Format

4. Main IODEF actors are CSIRTs – not IDS
IODEF purposes
A uniform incident classification enables applications such as:
uniform statistic generation and exchange, for both domestic use and exchange of data between teams. Over time a distributed incident statistics infrastructure can evolve
trend-analyses for reoccurrence of incidents, victims, attackers, etc.
trend-analyses for relations between scans and attacks and thus begin working on pro-active incident response
uniform internal incident storage
incident handling between teams made easier (only one team needs to classify and analyze the complete incident, the other team can re-use this data)
uniform incident reporting by victims to CSIRTs
Main IODEF actors are CSIRTs – not IDS
©2000. Yu.Demchenko. TERENA
Incident object Description and Exchange Format

5. Incident object Description and Exchange Format
IODEF Documents
Best Current Practice on Incident classification and reporting schemes.
Version 1
Incident Object Description and Exchange Format Requirements
Submitted as Internet-Draft
Incident Object Data Model
To be drafted before January 18, 2001
Incident Object Elements Description and XML Data Type Description (XML DTD)
©2000. Yu.Demchenko. TERENA
Incident object Description and Exchange Format

6. Incident object Description and Exchange Format
Incident Object Description and Exchange Format Requirements - draft-terena-itdwg-iodef-requirements-00.txt
1. Abstracts
2. Conventions used in this document
3. Introduction
3.1. Rationale
3.2. Incident Description Terms
4. General Requirements
5. Description Format
6. Communications Mechanisms Requirements
7. Message Contents
8. IODEF extensibility
9. Security considerations
10. Reference
©2000. Yu.Demchenko. TERENA
Incident object Description and Exchange Format

7. 3.2. Incident Description Terms
Attack
Attacker
CSIRT
Damage
Event
Evidence
Incident
Impact
Target
Victim
Vulnerability
Other terms:
alert, activity, IDS, Security Policy, etc.
©2000. Yu.Demchenko. TERENA
Incident object Description and Exchange Format

8. Incident object Description and Exchange Format
4. General Requirements
4.1. The IODEF shall reference and use previously published RFCs where possible.
©2000. Yu.Demchenko. TERENA
Incident object Description and Exchange Format

9. Incident object Description and Exchange Format
5. Description Format
5.1. IODEF format shall support full internationalization and localization.
5.2. The format of IODEF must support modularity in Incident description to
allow aggregation and filtering of data
5.3. IODEF must support the application of an access restriction policy attribute to every element.
©2000. Yu.Demchenko. TERENA
Incident object Description and Exchange Format

10. 6. Communications Mechanisms Requirements
6.1. IODEF exchange will normally be initiated by humans using standard communication protocols, for example, , WWW/HTTP, LDAP.
©2000. Yu.Demchenko. TERENA
Incident object Description and Exchange Format

11. Incident object Description and Exchange Format
7. Message Contents
7.1. The root element of the IO description should contain a unique identification number (or identifier), IO purpose and default permission level
7.2. The content of the IODEF description should contain the type of the attack if it is known. It is expected that this type will be drawn from a standardized list of events; a new type of event may use a temporary implementation-specific type if the event type has not yet been standardized.
7.3. The IODEF description must be structured such that any relevant advisories, such as those from CERT/CC, CVE, can be referenced.
©2000. Yu.Demchenko. TERENA
Incident object Description and Exchange Format

12. 7. Message Contents - Continue
7.4. IODEF may include a detailed description of the attack that caused the current Incident.
7.5. The IODEF description must include or be able to reference additional detailed data related to this specific underlying event(s)/activity, often referred as evidence.
7.6. The IODEF description MUST contain the description of the attacker and victim.
7.7. The IODEF description must support the representation of different types of device addresses, e.g., IP address (version 4 or 6) and Internet name.
©2000. Yu.Demchenko. TERENA
Incident object Description and Exchange Format

13. 7. Message Contents - Continue
7.8. IODEF must include the Identity of the creator of the Incident Object (CSIRT or other authority). This may be the sender in an information exchange or the team currently handling the incident.
7.9. The IODEF description must contain an indication of the possible impact of this event on the target. The value of this field should be drawn from a standardized list of values if the attack is recognized as known, or expressed in a free language by responsible CSIRT team member.
7.10. The IODEF must be able to state the degree of confidence in the report information.
7.11. The IODEF description must provide information about the actions taken in the course of this incident by previous CSIRTs.
©2000. Yu.Demchenko. TERENA
Incident object Description and Exchange Format

14. 7. Message Contents - Continue
7.12. The IODEF must support reporting of the time of all stages along Incident life-time.
7.13. Time shall be reported as the local time and time zone offset from UTC.
(Note: See RFC 1902 for guidelines on reporting time.)
7.14. The format for reporting the date must be compliant with all current standards for Year 2000 rollover, and it must have sufficient capability to continue reporting date values past the year 2038.
7.15. Time granularity in IO time parameters shall not be specified by the IODEF.
©2000. Yu.Demchenko. TERENA
Incident object Description and Exchange Format

15. 7. Message Contents - Continue
7.16. The IODEF should support confidentiality of the description content.
The selected design should be capable of supporting a variety of encryption algorithms and must be adaptable to a wide variety of environments.
7.17. The IODEF should ensure the integrity of the description content.
The selected design should be capable of supporting a variety of integrity mechanisms and must be adaptable to a wide variety of environments.
7.18. The IODEF should ensure the authenticity and non-repudiation of the message content.
©2000. Yu.Demchenko. TERENA
Incident object Description and Exchange Format

16. 7. Message Contents - Continue
7.19. The IODEF description must support an extension mechanism which may be used by implementers. This allows future implementation-specific or experimental data. The implementer MUST indicate how to interpret any included extensions.
7.20. The semantics of the IODEF description must be well defined.
©2000. Yu.Demchenko. TERENA
Incident object Description and Exchange Format

17. Incident object Description and Exchange Format
8. IODEF extensibility
8.1. The IODEF itself MUST be extensible. It is essential that when the use of new technologies and development of automated Incident handling system demands extension of IODEF, the IODEF will be capable to include new information.
©2000. Yu.Demchenko. TERENA
Incident object Description and Exchange Format

18. Incident Object Data Model
©2000. Yu.Demchenko. TERENA
Incident object Description and Exchange Format

19. IODEF XML Description Example
<incident incid=# msgid=#
status={alert, handling/processing, communication/exchange, archive, closed, statistics}
permission={public, restricted, internal, ???}>
<attack>
<name origin=…> data modification</name>
<target>information server</target> $$$$ </target>
<time> $$$Time block$$$$ </time>
<impact confidence=80> password list compromised</impact>
<action type=local_admin> all users advised to change
passwords </action>
</attack>
©2000. Yu.Demchenko. TERENA
Incident object Description and Exchange Format

20. IODEF XML Description Example - Continue
<attacker category=education customer=0> $$$ </attacker>
<method methid=# permission=restricted>
<vulnerability> $$$$ </vulnerability>
<evidence evid=#> $$$$ </evidence>
</method>
<authority category=csirt> $$$$$ </authority>
<history>
<reported repid=# type=internal> $$$$$ </reported>
<action actid=# type=local_admin> $$$ </action>
<communication> $$$$ </communication>
</history>
<digest>#########</digest>
<signature> ########### </signature>
</incident>
©2000. Yu.Demchenko. TERENA
Incident object Description and Exchange Format

21. IODEF std process – How to proceed further?
Best Current Practice on Incident classification and reporting schemes. - Version 1
May be updated as TF-CSIRT internal document
3 documents on Incident Object Description and Exchange Format
To be developed and submitted to IETF
Which WG – IDWG O.K.?
Evidence Collection and Archiving at GRIP WG
Problems of current I-D - draft-ietf-grip-prot-evidence-01.txt
No common format defined
No commitment from GRIP
Needs some study of local legislation
Privacy and re-enforcement
Implementation
Planned between few European CSIRTs
©2000. Yu.Demchenko. TERENA
Incident object Description and Exchange Format

22. Incident object Description and Exchange Format
IDMEF Documents
Currently on the IETF IDWG std process
IDMEF Requirements – withdrawn from I-D ???
IDMEF Data Model
IDMEF XML DTD
IMDEF ANS.1 MIBII format
Intrusion Alert Protocol
IDMEF is for Intrusion Detection Systems
Main actors - IDS
Root element – Alert
Short life history
Data collected automatically
©2000. Yu.Demchenko. TERENA
Incident object Description and Exchange Format