Patent Description:
The present disclosure relates generally to computer networks, and, more particularly, to correlating endpoint and network views to identify evasive applications.

Enterprise networks are carrying a very fast growing volume of both business and non-business critical traffic. Often, business applications such as video collaboration, cloud applications, etc., use the same hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) and/or HTTP secure (HTTPS) techniques that are used by non-business critical web traffic. This complicates the task of optimizing network performance for specific applications, as many applications use the same protocols, thus making it difficult to distinguish and select traffic flows for optimization.

Beyond the various types of legitimate application traffic in a network, some network traffic may also be malicious. For example, some traffic may seek to overwhelm a service by sending a large number of requests to the service. Such attacks are also sometimes known as denial of service (DoS) attacks. Other forms of malicious traffic may seek to exfiltrate sensitive information from a network, such as credit card numbers, trade secrets, and the like. Typically, such traffic is generated by a client that has been infected with malware. Thus, further types of malicious network traffic include network traffic that propagate the malware itself and network traffic that passes control commands to already infected devices. However, many instances of malware now use encryption, to conceal their network activity from detection.

"<NPL>) discloses supervised machine learning models that take advantage of network flow data features, such as TLS handshake metadata, DNS contextual flows and HTTP headers, to classify encrypted, malicious flows.

According to one or more embodiments of the disclosure, a service receives traffic telemetry data regarding encrypted traffic sent by an endpoint device in a network. The service analyzes the traffic telemetry data to infer characteristics of an application on the endpoint device that generated the encrypted traffic. The service receives, from a monitoring agent on the endpoint device, application telemetry data regarding the application. The service determines that the application is evasive malware based on the characteristics of the application inferred from the traffic telemetry data and on the application telemetry data received from the monitoring agent on the endpoint device. The service initiates performance of a mitigation action in the network, after determining that the application on the endpoint device is evasive malware.

Systems and apparatus for implementing the methods and services described herein, including network nodes, computer programs, computer program products, computer readable media and logic encoded on tangible media for implementing the methods and services are also described.

A computer network is a geographically distributed collection of nodes interconnected by communication links and segments for transporting data between end nodes, such as personal computers and workstations, or other devices, such as sensors, etc. Many types of networks are available, with the types ranging from local area networks (LANs) to wide area networks (WANs). LANs typically connect the nodes over dedicated private communications links located in the same general physical location, such as a building or campus. WANs, on the other hand, typically connect geographically dispersed nodes over long-distance communications links, such as common carrier telephone lines, optical lightpaths, synchronous optical networks (SONET), or synchronous digital hierarchy (SDH) links, or Powerline Communications (PLC) such as IEEE <NUM>, IEEE P1901. <NUM>, and others. The Internet is an example of a WAN that connects disparate networks throughout the world, providing global communication between nodes on various networks. The nodes typically communicate over the network by exchanging discrete frames or packets of data according to predefined protocols, such as the Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP). In this context, a protocol consists of a set of rules defining how the nodes interact with each other. Computer networks may further be interconnected by an intermediate network node, such as a router, to extend the effective "size" of each network.

Smart object networks, such as sensor networks, in particular, are a specific type of network having spatially distributed autonomous devices such as sensors, actuators, etc., that cooperatively monitor physical or environmental conditions at different locations, such as, e.g., energy/power consumption, resource consumption (e.g., water/gas/etc. for advanced metering infrastructure or "AMI" applications) temperature, pressure, vibration, sound, radiation, motion, pollutants, etc. Other types of smart objects include actuators, e.g., responsible for turning on/off an engine or perform any other actions. Sensor networks, a type of smart object network, are typically shared-media networks, such as wireless networks. That is, in addition to one or more sensors, each sensor device (node) in a sensor network may generally be equipped with a radio transceiver or other communication port, a microcontroller, and an energy source, such as a battery. Often, smart object networks are considered field area networks (FANs), neighborhood area networks (NANs), personal area networks (PANs), etc. Generally, size and cost constraints on smart object nodes (e.g., sensors) result in corresponding constraints on resources such as energy, memory, computational speed and bandwidth.

<FIG> is a schematic block diagram of an example computer network <NUM> illustratively comprising nodes/devices, such as a plurality of routers/devices interconnected by links or networks, as shown. For example, customer edge (CE) routers <NUM> may be interconnected with provider edge (PE) routers <NUM> (e.g., PE-<NUM>, PE-<NUM>, and PE-<NUM>) in order to communicate across a core network, such as an illustrative network backbone <NUM>. For example, routers <NUM>, <NUM> may be interconnected by the public Internet, a multiprotocol label switching (MPLS) virtual private network (VPN), or the like. Data packets <NUM> (e.g., traffic/messages) may be exchanged among the nodes/devices of the computer network <NUM> over links using predefined network communication protocols such as the Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP), User Datagram Protocol (UDP), Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) protocol, Frame Relay protocol, or any other suitable protocol. Those skilled in the art will understand that any number of nodes, devices, links, etc. may be used in the computer network, and that the view shown herein is for simplicity.

In some implementations, a router or a set of routers may be connected to a private network (e.g., dedicated leased lines, an optical network, etc.) or a virtual private network (VPN), such as an MPLS VPN, thanks to a carrier network, via one or more links exhibiting very different network and service level agreement characteristics. For the sake of illustration, a given customer site may fall under any of the following categories:.

<FIG> illustrates an example of network <NUM> in greater detail, according to various embodiments. As shown, network backbone <NUM> may provide connectivity between devices located in different geographical areas and/or different types of local networks. For example, network <NUM> may comprise local networks <NUM>, <NUM> that include devices/nodes <NUM>-<NUM> and devices/nodes <NUM>-<NUM>, respectively, as well as a data center/cloud environment <NUM> that includes servers <NUM>-<NUM>. Notably, local networks <NUM>-<NUM> and data center/cloud environment <NUM> may be located in different geographic locations.

Servers <NUM>-<NUM> may include, in various embodiments, a network management server (NMS), a dynamic host configuration protocol (DHCP) server, a constrained application protocol (CoAP) server, an outage management system (OMS), an application policy infrastructure controller (APIC), an application server, etc. As would be appreciated, network <NUM> may include any number of local networks, data centers, cloud environments, devices/nodes, servers, etc..

The techniques herein may also be applied to other network topologies and configurations. For example, the techniques herein may be applied to peering points with highspeed links, data centers, etc. Further, in various embodiments, network <NUM> may include one or more mesh networks, such as an Internet of Things network. Loosely, the term "Internet of Things" or "IoT" refers to uniquely identifiable objects/things and their virtual representations in a network-based architecture. In particular, the next frontier in the evolution of the Internet is the ability to connect more than just computers and communications devices, but rather the ability to connect "objects" in general, such as lights, appliances, vehicles, heating, ventilating, and air-conditioning (HVAC), windows and window shades and blinds, doors, locks, etc. The "Internet of Things" thus generally refers to the interconnection of objects (e.g., smart objects), such as sensors and actuators, over a computer network (e.g., via IP), which may be the public Internet or a private network.

Notably, shared-media mesh networks, such as wireless networks, etc., are often on what is referred to as Low-Power and Lossy Networks (LLNs), which are a class of network in which both the routers and their interconnect are constrained. In particular, LLN routers typically operate with highly constrained resources, e.g., processing power, memory, and/or energy (battery), and their interconnections are characterized by, illustratively, high loss rates, low data rates, and/or instability. LLNs are comprised of anything from a few dozen to thousands or even millions of LLN routers, and support point-to-point traffic (e.g., between devices inside the LLN), point-to-multipoint traffic (e.g., from a central control point such at the root node to a subset of devices inside the LLN), and multipoint-to-point traffic (e.g., from devices inside the LLN towards a central control point). Often, an IoT network is implemented with an LLN-like architecture. For example, as shown, local network <NUM> may be an LLN in which CE-<NUM> operates as a root node for nodes/devices <NUM>-<NUM> in the local mesh, in some embodiments.

<FIG> is a schematic block diagram of an example node/device <NUM> that may be used with one or more embodiments described herein, e.g., as any of the computing devices shown in <FIG>, particularly the PE routers <NUM>, CE routers <NUM>, nodes/device <NUM>-<NUM>, servers <NUM>-<NUM> (e.g., a network controller located in a data center, etc.), any other computing device that supports the operations of network <NUM> (e.g., switches, etc.), or any of the other devices referenced below. The device <NUM> may also be any other suitable type of device depending upon the type of network architecture in place, such as IoT nodes, etc. Device <NUM> comprises one or more network interfaces <NUM>, one or more processors <NUM>, and a memory <NUM> interconnected by a system bus <NUM>, and is powered by a power supply <NUM>.

The network interfaces <NUM> include the mechanical, electrical, and signaling circuitry for communicating data over physical links coupled to the network <NUM>. The network interfaces may be configured to transmit and/or receive data using a variety of different communication protocols. Notably, a physical network interface <NUM> may also be used to implement one or more virtual network interfaces, such as for virtual private network (VPN) access, known to those skilled in the art.

The memory <NUM> comprises a plurality of storage locations that are addressable by the processor(s) <NUM> and the network interfaces <NUM> for storing software programs and data structures associated with the embodiments described herein. The processor <NUM> may comprise necessary elements or logic adapted to execute the software programs and manipulate the data structures <NUM>. An operating system <NUM> (e.g., the Internetworking Operating System, or IOS®, of Cisco Systems, Inc. , another operating system, etc.), portions of which are typically resident in memory <NUM> and executed by the processor(s), functionally organizes the node by, inter alia, invoking network operations in support of software processors and/or services executing on the device. These software processors and/or services may comprise a traffic analysis process <NUM> and/or a training process <NUM>.

It will be apparent to those skilled in the art that other processor and memory types, including various computer-readable media, may be used to store and execute program instructions pertaining to the techniques described herein. Also, while the description illustrates various processes, it is expressly contemplated that various processes may be embodied as modules configured to operate in accordance with the techniques herein (e.g., according to the functionality of a similar process). Further, while processes may be shown and/or described separately, those skilled in the art will appreciate that processes may be routines or modules within other processes.

In general, traffic analysis process <NUM> may execute one or more machine learning-based classifiers to classify encrypted traffic in the network (and its originating application) for any number of purposes. In one embodiment, traffic analysis process <NUM> may assess captured telemetry data regarding one or more traffic flows, to determine whether a given traffic flow or set of flows are caused by malware in the network, such as a particular family of malware applications. Example forms of traffic that can be caused by malware may include, but are not limited to, traffic flows reporting exfiltrated data to a remote entity, spyware or ransomwarerelated flows, command and control (C2) traffic that oversees the operation of the deployed malware, traffic that is part of a network attack, such as a zero day attack or denial of service (DoS) attack, combinations thereof, or the like. In further embodiments, traffic analysis process <NUM> may classify the gathered telemetry data to detect other anomalous behaviors (e.g., malfunctioning devices, misconfigured devices, etc.), traffic pattern changes (e.g., a group of hosts begin sending significantly more or less traffic), or the like.

Traffic analysis process <NUM> may employ any number of machine learning techniques, to classify the gathered telemetry data. In general, machine learning is concerned with the design and the development of techniques that receive empirical data as input (e.g., telemetry data regarding traffic in the network) and recognize complex patterns in the input data. For example, some machine learning techniques use an underlying model M, whose parameters are optimized for minimizing the cost function associated to M, given the input data. For instance, in the context of classification, the model M may be a straight line that separates the data into two classes (e.g., labels) such that M = a*x + b*y + c and the cost function is a function of the number of misclassified points. The learning process then operates by adjusting the parameters a,b,c such that the number of misclassified points is minimal. After this optimization/learning phase, traffic analysis <NUM> can use the model M to classify new data points, such as information regarding new traffic flows in the network. Often, M is a statistical model, and the cost function is inversely proportional to the likelihood of M, given the input data.

In various embodiments, traffic analysis process <NUM> may employ one or more supervised, unsupervised, or semi-supervised machine learning models. Generally, supervised learning entails the use of a training set of data, as noted above, that is used to train the model to apply labels to the input data. For example, the training data may include sample telemetry data that is "normal," or "malware-generated. " On the other end of the spectrum are unsupervised techniques that do not require a training set of labels. Notably, while a supervised learning model may look for previously seen attack patterns that have been labeled as such, an unsupervised model may instead look to whether there are sudden changes in the behavior of the network traffic. Semi-supervised learning models take a middle ground approach that uses a greatly reduced set of labeled training data.

Example machine learning techniques that traffic analysis process <NUM> can employ may include, but are not limited to, nearest neighbor (NN) techniques (e.g., k-NN models, replicator NN models, etc.), statistical techniques (e.g., Bayesian networks, etc.), clustering techniques (e.g., k-means, mean-shift, etc.), neural networks (e.g., reservoir networks, artificial neural networks, etc.), support vector machines (SVMs), logistic or other regression, Markov models or chains, principal component analysis (PCA) (e.g., for linear models), multi-layer perceptron (MLP) ANNs (e.g., for non-linear models), replicating reservoir networks (e.g., for non-linear models, typically for time series), random forest classification, or the like.

The performance of a machine learning model can be evaluated in a number of ways based on the number of true positives, false positives, true negatives, and/or false negatives of the model. For example, the false positives of the model may refer to the number of traffic flows that are incorrectly classified as malware-generated, anomalous, etc. Conversely, the false negatives of the model may refer to the number of traffic flows that the model incorrectly classifies as normal, when actually malware-generated, anomalous, etc. True negatives and positives may refer to the number of traffic flows that the model correctly classifies as normal or malware-generated, etc., respectively. Related to these measurements are the concepts of recall and precision. Generally, recall refers to the ratio of true positives to the sum of true positives and false negatives, which quantifies the sensitivity of the model. Similarly, precision refers to the ratio of true positives the sum of true and false positives.

In some cases, traffic analysis process <NUM> may assess the captured telemetry data on a per-flow basis. In other embodiments, traffic analysis <NUM> may assess telemetry data for a plurality of traffic flows based on any number of different conditions. For example, traffic flows may be grouped based on their sources, destinations, temporal characteristics (e.g., flows that occur around the same time, etc.), combinations thereof, or based on any other set of flow characteristics.

As shown in <FIG>, various mechanisms can be leveraged to capture information about traffic in a network, such as telemetry data regarding a traffic flow. For example, consider the case in which client node <NUM> initiates a traffic flow with remote server <NUM> that includes any number of packets <NUM>. Any number of networking devices along the path of the flow may analyze and assess packet <NUM>, to capture telemetry data regarding the traffic flow. For example, as shown, consider the case of edge router CE-<NUM> through which the traffic between node <NUM> and server <NUM> flows.

In some embodiments, a networking device may analyze packet headers, to capture feature information about the traffic flow. For example, router CE-<NUM> may capture the source address and/or port of host node <NUM>, the destination address and/or port of server <NUM>, the protocol(s) used by packet <NUM>, or other header information by analyzing the header of a packet <NUM>. Example captured features may include, but are not limited to, Transport Layer Security (TLS) information (e.g., from a TLS handshake), such as the ciphersuite offered, user agent, TLS extensions (e.g., type of encryption used, the encryption key exchange mechanism, the encryption authentication type, etc.), HTTP information (e.g., URI, etc.), Domain Name System (DNS) information, or any other data features that can be extracted from the observed traffic flow(s).

In further embodiments, the device may also assess the payload of the packet to capture information about the traffic flow. For example, router CE-<NUM> or another device may perform deep packet inspection (DPI) on one or more of packets <NUM>, to assess the contents of the packet. Doing so may, for example, yield additional information that can be used to determine the application associated with the traffic flow (e.g., packets <NUM> were sent by a web browser of node <NUM>, packets <NUM> were sent by a videoconferencing application, etc.). However, as would be appreciated, a traffic flow may also be encrypted, thus preventing the device from assessing the actual payload of the packet. In such cases, the characteristics of the application can instead be inferred from the captured header information.

The networking device that captures the flow telemetry data may also compute any number of statistics or metrics regarding the traffic flow. For example, CE-<NUM> may determine the start time, end time, duration, packet size(s), the distribution of bytes within a flow, etc., associated with the traffic flow by observing packets <NUM>. In further examples, the capturing device may capture sequence of packet lengths and time (SPLT) data regarding the traffic flow, sequence of application lengths and time (SALT) data regarding the traffic flow, or byte distribution (BD) data regarding the traffic flow.

As noted above, traffic analysis process <NUM> may comprise a machine learning-based classifier that is trained to detect malware based on the captured telemetry data regarding encrypted traffic flows in the network. As part of this detection, traffic analysis process <NUM> may infer characteristics of the application executing on the endpoint node, based on the captured telemetry data regarding the traffic flow. These characteristics may include, but are not limited to, the identity of the application (e.g., Internet Explorer, Firefox, etc.), the type of application (e.g., web browser, videoconferencing, etc.), and/or application version (e.g., Firefox version <NUM>, Internet Explorer version <NUM>, etc.). This information can be used, e.g., to discern between benign encrypted traffic in the network and traffic generated by malware.

While the above techniques are quite effective at identifying malware through the analysis of encrypted network traffic, malicious entities are constantly attempting to create malware that avoids detection. One potential way to avoid detection by a traffic classifier would be to mimic the traffic behavior of common, trusted applications that typically generate benign encrypted traffic in a network. For example, malware could conceivably be created that generates encrypted traffic that looks very similar to traffic from a particular type/version of web browser or other trusted application.

The techniques herein allows for the detection of evasive malware that attempts to mimic certain traffic parameters of benign applications in a network. In some aspects, a monitoring agent may be executed on an endpoint device in a network that captures application telemetry data regarding the application sending encrypted traffic in the network. In further aspects, a traffic analyzer that infers characteristics of the sending application can correlate and compare these inferences to the reported application telemetry data from the endpoint monitoring agent, to determine whether any discrepancies exist. Such discrepancies are a strong indicator of the presence of evasive malware on the endpoint and, accordingly, can be used to trigger the performance of a mitigation action in the network, such as sending a security alert, blocking the traffic, or the like.

Specifically, according to one or more embodiments of the disclosure as described in detail below, a service receives traffic telemetry data regarding encrypted traffic sent by an endpoint device in a network. The service analyzes the traffic telemetry data to infer characteristics of an application on the endpoint device that generated the encrypted traffic. The service receives, from a monitoring agent on the endpoint device, application telemetry data regarding the application. The service determines that the application is evasive malware based on the characteristics of the application inferred from the traffic telemetry data and on the application telemetry data received from the monitoring agent on the endpoint device. The service initiates performance of a mitigation action in the network, after determining that the application on the endpoint device is evasive malware.

Illustratively, the techniques described herein may be performed by hardware, software, and/or firmware, such as in accordance with the traffic analysis process <NUM>, which may include computer executable instructions executed by the processor <NUM> (or independent processor of interfaces <NUM>) to perform functions relating to the techniques described herein.

Operationally, a traffic analysis service hosted by one or more devices in a network may infer characteristics of the applications and/or libraries used on an endpoint based on the traffic telemetry data captured from the encrypted traffic sent by the endpoint. In some embodiments, the service may also receive application telemetry data from a monitoring agent executing on the endpoint to verify that the inferred characteristics from the traffic telemetry (e.g., the identity of the application, etc.) were correct. Any inconsistencies can then be treated as an indication of evasive malware on the endpoint and the service can initiate the performance of a mitigation action, accordingly.

<FIG> illustrate an example of correlating endpoint and network views to identify evasive applications, according to various embodiments. As shown in <FIG>, assume that a network <NUM> includes an endpoint device <NUM> that communicates with another remote endpoint <NUM>. For example, in many cases, endpoint device <NUM> may be a client device that communicates with a remote server or service via network <NUM>. More specifically, endpoint device <NUM> may execute an application <NUM> that generates and exchanges encrypted traffic <NUM> with endpoint <NUM> via network <NUM>.

Located along the network path between endpoint device <NUM> and endpoint <NUM> may be any number of telemetry exporters, such as telemetry exporter <NUM> shown. For example, telemetry exporter <NUM> may be a switch, router, firewall, server, network controller, or other networking equipment via which encrypted traffic <NUM> sent between endpoint device <NUM> end endpoint <NUM> flows. During operation, traffic telemetry exporter <NUM> may capture data regarding encrypted traffic <NUM>, generate traffic telemetry data <NUM> based on the captured data, and send traffic telemetry data <NUM> to traffic analysis service <NUM> for assessment. For example, traffic telemetry data <NUM> may include Internet Protocol Flow Information Export (IPFIX) records and/or Netflow records regarding encrypted traffic <NUM>.

In various embodiments, network <NUM> may also include a traffic analysis service <NUM> that is implemented by one or more devices in network <NUM> through the execution of traffic analysis process <NUM>. For example, in some cases, traffic analysis service <NUM> may be implemented by one or more devices in the local network of endpoint device <NUM>. However, in further cases, traffic analysis service <NUM> may be implemented as a cloud service that is in communication with telemetry exporter <NUM> and endpoint device <NUM>, either directly or indirectly.

According to various embodiments, in addition to executing application <NUM>, endpoint device <NUM> may also execute a monitoring agent <NUM> that monitors the local operations of endpoint device <NUM>. More specifically, monitoring agent <NUM> may capture application telemetry data regarding the execution and operation of application <NUM> on endpoint device <NUM>. For example, monitoring agent <NUM> may calculate a process hash fingerprint of application <NUM>, may capture information regarding the libraries used by application <NUM>, and/or may capture traffic information regarding encrypted traffic <NUM>, such as size or timing information for the packets of encrypted traffic <NUM>, or the like. Example monitoring applications that may be suitable for performing the tasks herein may include, but are not limited to, AnyConnect Network Visibility Module (NVM) by Cisco Systems, Inc. , Advanced Malware Protection (AMP) by Cisco Systems, Inc. , Application Performance Management by AppDynamics, certain monitoring functions of the resident operating system, and other suitable monitoring functions.

In <FIG>, traffic analysis service <NUM> may assess traffic telemetry data <NUM> from telemetry exporter <NUM>, to determine whether encrypted traffic <NUM> was generated by malware on endpoint device <NUM>. Notably, traffic analysis service <NUM> may infer the characteristics of application <NUM> from the captured traffic features in traffic telemetry data <NUM>, to determine whether application <NUM> is malware. For example, as detailed above, traffic analysis service <NUM> may assess the user agent, TLS parameters, behavioral information (e.g., SPLT data, etc.), or the like, to determine whether encrypted traffic <NUM> is consistent with a trusted application or known form of malware on which the classifier of traffic analysis service <NUM> has been trained.

In the case in which traffic analysis service <NUM> determines that application <NUM> is malware, traffic analysis service <NUM> may initiate a mitigation action in network <NUM>. Further, some protocols provide high fidelity signatures (e.g., TLS fingerprints) while others (e.g., HTTP User-Agent) do not always do so. This can also be taken into account by traffic analysis service <NUM>, to ascertain a level of confidence in the inferred characteristics of application <NUM>.

As shown in <FIG>, traffic analysis service <NUM> may also receive application telemetry data <NUM> from monitoring agent <NUM>. In some embodiments, monitoring agent <NUM> may supply application telemetry data <NUM> to traffic analysis service <NUM> directly. In other embodiments, monitoring agent <NUM> may receive application telemetry data <NUM> indirectly from endpoint device <NUM>, such as via an application monitoring service in communication with monitoring agent <NUM>. In addition, application telemetry data <NUM> may be provided by monitoring agent <NUM> on either a push or pull basis. For example, in some cases, monitoring agent <NUM> may first send a request to monitoring agent <NUM> (either directly or indirectly) to monitoring agent <NUM> and, in response, monitoring agent <NUM> may send application telemetry data <NUM> to traffic analysis process <NUM>.

In <FIG>, according to various embodiments, traffic analysis service <NUM> may correlate application telemetry data <NUM> with the inferred application characteristics of application <NUM> from traffic telemetry data <NUM>. In turn, traffic analysis service <NUM> may determine whether application <NUM> is evasive malware by comparing the inferences from the traffic data to the reported application characteristics from monitoring agent <NUM>. For example, assume that traffic analysis service <NUM> infers that application <NUM> is Firefox version <NUM>, based on the traffic telemetry data captured from encrypted traffic <NUM>. However, if the process hash fingerprint of application <NUM> indicates that application <NUM> is not, in fact, Firefox, traffic analysis service <NUM> may deem application <NUM> evasive malware.

In some embodiments, traffic analysis service <NUM> can also identify tampering with endpoint device <NUM> by correlating other aspects of the traffic flow data, e.g., the outbound bytes and application layer protocol indicated in traffic telemetry data <NUM>, with the flows records of application telemetry data <NUM> exported directly by endpoint device <NUM>. Notably, some evasive malware may also attempt to either delete local records of its operation or alter these records on the hosting device. For example, if application <NUM> is malware, it may attempt to misrepresent the characteristics of the encrypted traffic <NUM> in a local log of endpoint device <NUM>. However, any discrepancy between these local logs and the observed traffic characteristics may by treated by traffic analysis service <NUM> as an indication that application <NUM> is acting evasively and is likely malware.

In <FIG>, if traffic analysis service <NUM> determines that application <NUM> is evasive malware traffic analysis service <NUM> may initiate any number of mitigation actions in network <NUM>. For example, traffic analysis service <NUM> may send an alert regarding endpoint device <NUM> to a security service, to a network administrator, and/or even to the user of endpoint device <NUM>. In further cases, traffic analysis service <NUM> may initiate a change in network <NUM> itself, such as by causing traffic associated with endpoint device <NUM> to be blocked, receive a lower traffic priority, or be rerouted, based on the determination that endpoint device <NUM> is infected with malware.

<FIG> illustrates a simplified procedure <NUM> for correlating endpoint and network views to identify evasive applications, in accordance with one or more embodiments described herein. For example, a non-generic, specifically configured device (e.g., device <NUM>) may perform procedure <NUM> by executing stored instructions (e.g., process <NUM>), to implement a traffic analysis service. The procedure <NUM> may start at step <NUM>, and continues to step <NUM>, where, as described in greater detail above, the service may receive traffic telemetry data regarding encrypted traffic sent by an endpoint device in a network. Such telemetry data may indicate the characteristics of the encrypted traffic such as, but not limited to, the user agent, ciphersuite, other TLS parameters, flow behavioral information (e.g., SALT data, SPLT data, etc.), protocols in use, ports, and/or any other information that can be captured regarding an encrypted traffic flow.

At step <NUM>, as detailed above, the service may analyze the traffic telemetry data to infer characteristics of an application on the endpoint device that generated the encrypted traffic. In some embodiments, the service may execute a machine learning-based classifier that has been trained using traffic samples from any number of different applications, to analyze the traffic telemetry data. For example, such a classifier may be trained to identify a particular version of a web browser, based on its exhibited encrypted traffic. Example application characteristics may include, but are not limited to, an application type associated with the application, the identity of the application (e.g., Internet Explorer, Firefox, etc.), the application version, and/or any other characteristics that can be inferred from the traffic generated by the application.

At step <NUM>, the service may receive, from a monitoring agent on the endpoint device, application telemetry data regarding the application, as described in greater detail above. This telemetry data may include, for example, a process hash fingerprint of the application executing on the endpoint device, information regarding when, where, and how the application sends encrypted traffic from the endpoint device, and/or any other information regarding the executing application.

At step <NUM>, as detailed above, the service may determine that the application is evasive malware based on the characteristics of the application inferred from the traffic telemetry data and on the application telemetry data received from the monitoring agent on the endpoint device. For example, in some embodiments, the service may compare the inferred identify of the application from the traffic analysis to the application process hash fingerprint sent by the local monitoring agent on the endpoint. If the service determines that there is a discrepancy, the service may deem this discrepancy an indication that the application is evasive malware. Likewise, if the traffic characteristics of the application traffic from the monitoring agent do not match that observed in the network itself, the service may deem the application to be evasive malware.

At step <NUM>, the service may initiate performance of a mitigation action in the network, as described in greater detail above. Notably, after determining that the application on the endpoint device is evasive malware, the service may generate and send an alert regarding the endpoint, may initiate a change in how the network processes traffic associated with the endpoint (e.g., by blocking/dropping traffic, rerouting traffic, etc.), or cause the performance of any other corrective measure. Procedure <NUM> then ends at step <NUM>.

It should be noted that while certain steps within procedure <NUM> may be optional as described above, the steps shown in <FIG> are merely examples for illustration, and certain other steps may be included or excluded as desired. Further, while a particular order of the steps is shown, this ordering is merely illustrative, and any suitable arrangement of the steps may be utilized without departing from the scope of the embodiments herein.

The techniques described herein, therefore, allow for the detection of malware that seeks to evade detection by an encrypted traffic analyzer. In particular, the techniques herein can be used to identify malware that is attempting to appear as an otherwise trusted application, from a behavioral standpoint.

Claim 1:
A method (<NUM>) comprising:
receiving (<NUM>), at a service, traffic telemetry data regarding encrypted traffic sent by an endpoint device in a network (<NUM>, <NUM>);
analyzing (<NUM>), by the service, the traffic telemetry data to infer an identity of an application on the endpoint device that sent the encrypted traffic;
receiving (<NUM>), at the service and from a monitoring agent on the endpoint device, application telemetry data regarding the application on the endpoint device;
determining (<NUM>), by the service, that the application is evasive malware based on the identity of the application inferred from the traffic telemetry data and on the application telemetry data received from the monitoring agent on the endpoint device by:
determining an identity of the application based on the application telemetry data received from the monitoring agent on the endpoint device, and
comparing the identity of the application determined based on the application telemetry data with the identity of the application inferred from the traffic telemetry data; and
initiating (<NUM>), by the service, performance of a mitigation action in the network, after determining that the application on the endpoint device is evasive malware.