INCH Working Group Glenn M Keeni
Internet-Draft Cyber Solutions Inc.
Category: Informational Roman Danyliw
Expires: December 24, 2006 CERT/CC
Yuri Demchenko
University of Amsterdam
June 25, 2006
Requirements for the Format for Incident Information Exchange (FINE)
<draft-ietf-inch-requirements-08.txt>
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Abstract
This document describes the high-level functional requirements of an
abstract format, the Format for Incident information Exchange (FINE),
which will facilitate the exchange of incident information among
computer security incident response teams (CSIRTs) and involved
parties. A common and well-defined format will help in the exchange
of incident related information across different administrative
domains such as organizations, regions, and countries.
Implementations of FINE will also be useful for reactionary analysis
of current threats and support the proactive identification of trends
that can lead to incident prevention.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction ............................................... 3
2. Incident Handling Framework ................................ 3
3. General Requirements ....................................... 5
4. Format Requirements ........................................ 6
5. Communication Mechanism Requirements ....................... 7
6. Content Requirements ....................................... 7
7. Security Considerations .................................... 8
8. IANA Considerations ........................................ 8
9. References ................................................. 9
10. Acknowledgements ........................................... 10
11. Authors' Addresses ......................................... 10
Full Copyright Statement ....................................... 11
Appendix: History of Changes
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1. Introduction
Computer security incidents occur across administrative domains,
often spanning different organizations and national borders. Hence,
a response requires coordination and collaboration between the
involved parties and the responsible computer security incident
response teams (CSIRTs). The basis for this interaction is often
data and statistics describing the nature of the incident. This
information, referred to as an incident report in this document, will
not only support response activity to the specific incident, but may
also be used for historical analysis or proactive responses.
This document defines the high-level functional requirements for a
format that can support the exchange of incident reports. The
abstract format being discussed is referred to as the Format for
INcident information Exchange (FINE). The implementation of the
requirements, the format itself, is out of the scope of this
document.
The intent of FINE is to enable rapid and effective response to
incidents by improving the ability of CSIRTs to exchange and process
incident reports. This will be achieved by ensuring that
implementations of FINE require:
+ unambiguous semantics for the data;
+ a well-defined syntax for the data; and
+ support end-user processing (e.g., categorization and
statistical analysis).
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
"SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "NOT RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and
"OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in BCP
14, RFC 2119 [1].
2. Incident Handling Framework
2.1. Descriptive Terms
For the purpose of clarity, certain commonly used terms from the
operational domain of CSIRTs are defined here. These are based on
related documents [3, 4, 5, 6, 7]
2.1.1. Event
An event is an occurrence in a system or network that may be of
interest and warrant attention. An event is not necessarily malicious
or deliberate.
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2.1.2. Attack
An attack is a series of events caused either directly or indirectly
by a source that violates the security policy of the target. These
violations may include a compromise of a user account, denial of
service, information theft, etc.
2.1.3. Source
The origin of an attack as described by a host, user account,
computer program, network address, person, or organization.
2.1.4. Target
The target of an attack as described by a host, user account,
computer program, network address, person, or organization.
2.1.5. Computer security incident
A computer security incident, referred to as an incident, is a set of
one or more related attacks.
2.1.6. Incident report
An incident report is the collection of information describing an
incident. In this document the terms "incident report" and "incident
information" are used interchangeably.
2.1.7. CSIRT
A computer security incident response team, CSIRT, is an individual
or a group of individuals that has the responsibility to coordinate
and support the response to incidents in a defined constituency [6].
A CSIRT creates, receives, processes, and maintains incident reports.
2.1.8. Impact
An impact describes the consequence of an incident on a target
expressed in terms relevant to a user community.
2.2 The Operational Model
Incident reports are an important subset of information exchanged
between a CSIRT and its constituency or other CSIRTs. These reports
form the basis for resolving and understanding activity in a
constituency. A CSIRT may create an incident report when an incident
is reported, receive a report from another CSIRT, or send a report to
a CSIRT. As investigation into the incident progresses, new
information about an incident may be discovered. New information may
trigger subsequent information exchange.
The creation and exchange of incident reports is often driven by a
work-flow process that prioritizes and manages the information flow
in a CSIRT. These systems often associate CSIRT personnel with
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particular incidents or maintain status onto a given investigation.
FINE does not provide a representation for these internal processes.
FINE is a representation for the data exchanged between different
parties. In order to integrate FINE into the operational processes of
CSIRTS, the parties will have to use an interface to convert to and
from the internal data representation (of a propriety work-flow
application or database) and FINE. Hence, the sender of an incident
report must convert from the local format to FINE, while the
recipient must translate FINE back into its own local format. The
communicating CSIRTs need not have the same local format for storing
incident reports. This information exchange is depicted in Figure 1.
CSIRT CSIRT
+------------------+ +------------------+
| | | |
| +--------+ +---------+ +---------+ +--------+ |
| | |<--|Interface|<--Incident-->|Interface|-->| | |
| |Incident| +---------+ Report +---------+ |Incident| |
| | Report | | | | Report | |
| |Database| | |=== FINE ===| | |Database| |
| | | | | | | |
| +--------+ | | +--------+ |
| | | |
+------------------+ +------------------+
Fig. 1 Operational Model for FINE
3. General Requirements
3.1 FINE SHALL reference and use previously published RFCs where
possible.
3.2 FINE MUST have well-defined semantics and specify a standard
mechanism for extensibility.
The data elements of the various components of FINE should be typed,
and the meaning should be well specified. Likewise, there should be
a standardized method to address representing data not defined in the
data model.
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4. Format Requirements
4.1 FINE SHALL support full internationalization and localization.
A significant part of the incident report may consist of natural
language text. Since some incidents may involve CSIRTs from different
countries, FINE must have provisions for using local character sets
and encodings.
In cases where local (non-standard) character sets and encodings are
used, the data elements that carry encoding-sensitive information
should be clearly indicated.
4.2 FINE MUST allow multilingual reports.
Different parts of the incident report may be written in a different
natural language. FINE must support multiple translations of the
same data element.
4.3 FINE MUST support aggregation and filtering of incident report data.
The structure of the FINE data elements and their associated
semantics must lend themselves to aggregation and filtering by
applications.
4.4 FINE MUST be able to document the evolution of an incident report.
As incidents are investigated new information may become available or
old information may be invalidated. FINE must support the ability to
convey this track record of an incident report.
4.5 FINE MUST support a granular access restriction policy
on subsets of the incident report.
Different parts of an incident report may have information of varying
degrees of sensitivity. It must be possible to label subsets of the
incident report with their appropriate sensitivity. With this
information, applications can then implement different levels of
access restrictions for the different components of the incident
report.
4.6 FINE SHOULD allow the application of external mechanisms to
support authenticity, integrity, and non-repudiation checks of
incident reports.
FINE itself need not guarantee authenticity, integrity, or non-
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repudiation. However, the specification must detail a standardized
mechanism to ensure these properties.
5. Communication Mechanism Requirements
5.1 The security properties of FINE reports SHOULD be
independent of the communication mechanism.
The exchange of incident reports is typically conducted using
standard communication protocols (e.g., SMTP, HTTP, FTP, XML Web
Services). The security properties of FINE MUST NOT be tied to a
particular communications protocol. Provisions for authenticity,
integrity, and confidentiality should be made in FINE.
6. Content Requirements
6.1 FINE MUST be flexible enough to support various degrees of
completeness, while still clearly defining the minimal
information required for describing an incident.
6.2 FINE MUST support globally unique identifiers for each incident
report.
It should be possible to reference an incident report unambiguously
using a globally unique identifier. Furthermore, it should be
possible to derive the constituency of the incident report from this
identifier.
6.3 FINE MUST support the naming of the source and target.
6.4 FINE MUST support the description of various aspects of the
source and target.
6.5 FINE MUST support the description of the methodology used by
the attacker.
Well-known classifications or enumeration schemes should be used to
describe the attack.
6.6 FINE SHOULD support the identification of the sender of the
incident report.
FINE should indicate the source of each component of the incident
report if it is different from the sender (e.g., the team handling
the incident).
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6.7 FINE SHOULD support the inclusion or referencing of information
external to the incident report.
6.8 FINE MUST support natural language descriptions of the incident.
6.9 FINE SHOULD support references to the appropriate security advisories
from coordination and analysis centers.
6.10 FINE SHOULD support a description of the impact of the incident.
6.11 FINE SHOULD support a description of the actions taken during the
course of handling the incident.
6.12 FINE MUST use a standardized time specification.
Incident reports should represent time in such a way that it is
possible to easily compare information reported from different time
zones.
7. Security Considerations
There are no explicit security considerations for this document,
since no protocol or information model is specified. However, a
number of security relevant requirements are outlined for FINE
implementers. By its nature, FINE will represent sensitive
information. Hence, implementers should ensure support for access
restriction (requirement 4.5), confidentiality, integrity, and non-
repudiation (requirement 4.6) all through transport independent
approaches (requirement 5.1).
8. IANA Considerations
This document requires no action from IANA.
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9. References
9.1 Normative References
[1] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement
Levels." BCP 14, RFC 2119. March 1997.
9.2 Informative References
[2] Arvidsson, J., Cormack, A., Demchenko, Y. and Meijer J.,
"TERENA's Incident Object Description and Exchange Format
Requirements." RFC 3067. February 2001.
[3] Brownlee, N., Guttman, E., "Expectations for Computer
Security Incident Response." BCP 21, RFC 2350. June 1998.
[4] Shirey, R., "Internet Security Glossary." FYI 36, RFC 2828.
May 2000.
[5] "Establishing a Computer Security Incident Response Capability
(CSIRC)." NIST Special Publication. 800-3. November 1991.
[6] West-Brown, M., Stikvoort, D., Kossakowski, K., Killcrece G.,
Ruefle, R., Zajicek, M., "Handbook for Computer Security Incident
Response Teams (CSIRTs)." CMU/SEI-98-HB-002. Carnegie Mellon
University, Pittsburgh, PA. April 2003.
[7] Howard, J. and Longstaff, A., "A Common Language for Computer
Security Incidents." Sandia Report: SAND98-8667. Sandia National
Laboratories. Albuquerque, NM. October 1998.
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10. Acknowledgments
The precursor of this document is "RFC3067 TERENA's Incident Object
Description Exchange Format Requirements" [2], which is based on the
work done in the Incident Object Description Exchange Format Working
Group at TERENA. Subsequent work and discussion have been carried
out in the INCH-WG and in the WIDE-WG on Network Management and
Security.
The following individuals, in alphabetic order, have made a
substantial contribution to this document:
Hiroyuki Kido
Hiroyuki Ohno
Kathleen M. Moriarty
Jan Meijer
11. Authors' Addresses:
Glenn Mansfield Keeni
Cyber Solutions Inc.
Sendai, Japan
Email: glenn@cysols.com
Roman Danyliw
CERT Coordination Center
4500 Fifth Ave.
Pittsburgh, PA 15213
USA
Email: rdd@cert.org
Yuri Demchenko
University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Email: demch@chello.nl
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Appendix - non-normative.
Major Changes (reverse count)
Information about changes to the document since publishing -00
version will be documented here.
Major changes in version-08
1) Editorial changes
Major changes in version-07
1) References [4], [5] (in -06) have been removed.
2) Editorial nits have been fixed
3) Authors' list and contributors' list have been updated.
Major changes in version-06
1) Reference [3] is deleted. The reference indices are renmbered.
2) Changed the wording in the abstract to bring it in line with the
title
"INcident report" => "INcident information"
3) Added a sentence to the definition of Incident report
In this document the terms "incident report" and "incident
information" are used interchangeably.
4) Modified 4.1 (clause about preserving the contents of encoding
sensitive information when transferring is deleted).
5) Modified 4.11 (clause for supporting different time granularities
is deleted).
6) Revised the requirement 5.1
7) Editorial nits
Major changes in version-05
1) In 2.1 the definitions have been rearranged. Incident Report
(earlier 2.1.8 have been moved to 2.1.6)
2) Section 2.2, Operational model, revised
3) Editorial nits
4) IDnits
5) Added Roman Danyliw to the authors list.
Major changes in version -04
1) Operational model rewritten
2) Editorial nits
3) IPR notice updated
Major changes in version -03 (Second revision)
1) title changed to
Requirements for the Format for INcident information Exchange
(FINE)
2) editorial nits
3) RFC2119 key words used
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4) added description to 4.6
5) reformatted 4.7 and 5.1 to have single statement requirements
followed by description of the requirements.
6) added an example to 4.2
7) moved 6.13 to Format requirements as 4.8
8) updated references #3, #5, #10
9) updated section 2.2
Major changes in version -03 (First revision)
1) editorial nits
2) in Security Considerations section an example is added to explain
the impact of the contents of the IR on the security and privacy
of individuals of organization.
3) Section 3 is deleted
Major changes in version -02
1) clarified definitions of some terms. Added a few definitions.
2) in 5.1, added requirement for handling non-standard/local
encoding and/or character codes.
3) in 5.7, added requirement that multiple versions of the report
should be consistent
4) in 7.5, added requirement that the source of each component of
the Incident report must be identified (if different from the
creator of the Incident report).
5) some editorial nits are fixed.
Major changes in version -01
1) clarified definition of some terms - still in the process, needs
more discussion with concerned parties.
2) re-written section 2. Operational model
3) added text about multilingual support for non-utf-8 character sets
to item "5.1 FINE shall support full internationalization and
localization" - results of discussion at IETF-56
4) included clear statement about unique identification of the
Incident report to item "5.1 FINE shall support full
internationalization and localization."
5) added item about the possibility of Incident description in
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natural language:
7.7 The FINE may contain a description of the Incident or comprising
security events in a natural language.
6) requirement about describing impact of the Incident extended (item
7.9) with recommendation to provide guidelines to describe the impact
on the target to ensure a uniform interpretation of the description.
7) item 7.11 about time normalization extended with the possibility
to describe time offset when normalization is not possible.
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