A framework for constructing features and models for intrusion detection systems
Intrusion detection (ID) is an important component of infrastructure protection mechanisms. Intrusion detection systems (IDSs) need to be accurate, adaptive, and extensible. Given these requirements and the complexities of today's network environments, we need a more systematic and automated IDS development process rather that the pure knowledge encoding and engineering approaches. This article describes a novel framework, MADAM ID, for Mining Audit Data for Automated Models for Instrusion Detection. This framework uses data mining algorithms to compute activity patterns from system audit data and extracts predictive features from the patterns. It then applies machine learning algorithms to the audit records taht are processed according to the feature definitions to generate intrusion detection rules.  Evaluation showed that our ID model was one of the best performing of all the participating systems. We also briefly discuss our experience in converting the detection models produced by off-line data mining programs to real-time modules of existing IDSs.

title: Worm detection, early warning and response based on local victim information
abstract: Worm detection systems have traditionally focused on global strategies. In the absence of a global worm detection system, we examine the effectiveness of local worm detection and response strategies. This paper makes three contributions: (1) we propose a simple two-phase local worm victim detection algorithm, DSC (Destination-Source Correlation), based on worm behavior in terms of both infection pattern and scanning pattern. DSC can detect zero-day scanning worms with a high detection rate and very low false positive rate. (2) We demonstrate the effectiveness of early worm warning based on local victim information. For example, warning occurs with 0.19% infection of all vulnerable hosts on Internet when using a /12 monitored network. (3) Based on local victim information, we investigate and evaluate the effectiveness of an automatic real-time local response in terms of slowing down the global Internet worms propagation. (2) and (3) are general results, not specific to certain detection algorithm like DSC. We demonstrate (2) and (3) with both analytical models and packet-level network simulator experiments.

title: HoneyStat: Local Worm Detection Using Honeypots
abstract: Worm detection systems have traditionally used global strategies and focused on scan rates. The noise associated with this approach requires statistical techniques and large data sets (e.g., 220 monitored machines) to yield timely alerts and avoid false positives. Worm detection techniques for smaller local networks have not been fully explored.

title: Using Labeling to Prevent Cross-Service Attacks Against Smart Phones
abstract: Wireless devices that integrate the functionality of PDAs and cell phones are becoming commonplace, making different types of network services available to mobile applications. However, the integration of different services allows an attacker to cross service boundaries. For example, an attack carried out through the wireless network interface may eventually provide access to the phone functionality. This type of attacks can cause considerable damage because some of the services (e.g., the GSM-based services) charge the user based on the traffic or time of use. In this paper, we demonstrate the feasibility of these attacks by developing a proof-of-concept exploit that crosses service boundaries. To address these security issues, we developed a solution based on resource labeling. We modified the kernel of an integrated wireless device so that processes and files are marked in a way that allows one to regulate the access to different system resources. Labels are set when certain network services are accessed. The labeling is then transferred between processes and system resources as a result of either access or execution. We also defined a language for creating labeling rules, and demonstrated how the system can be used to prevent attacks that attempt to cross service boundaries. Experimental evaluation shows that the implementation introduces little overhead. Our security solution is orthogonal to other protection schemes and provides a critical defense for the growing problem of cell phone viruses and worms

title: Statistical Causality Analysis of INFOSEC Alert Data
abstract: With the increasingly widespread deployment of security mechanisms, such as firewalls, intrusion detection systems (IDSs), antiviras software and authentication services, the problem of alert analysis has become very important. The large amount of alerts can overwhelm security administrators and prevent them from adequately understanding and analyzing the security state of the network, and initiating appropriate response in a timely fashion. Recently, several approaches for alert correlation and attack scenario analysis have been proposed. However, these approaches all have limited capabilities in detecting new attack scenarios. In this paper, we study the problem of security alert correlation with an emphasis on attack scenario analysis. In our framework, we use clustering techniques to process low-level alert data into high-level aggregated alerts, and conduct causal analysis based on statistical tests to discover new relationships among attacks. Our statistical causality approach complements other approaches that use hard-coded prior knowledge for pattern matching. We perform a series of experiments to validate our method using DARPA’s Grand Challenge Problem (GCP) datasets, the 2000 DARPA Intrusion Detection Scenario datasets, and the DEF CON 9 datasets. The results show that our approach can discover new patterns of attack relationships when the alerts of attacks are statistically correlated.

title: Anomaly detection using call stack information
abstract: The call stack of a program execution can be a very good information source for intrusion detection. There is no prior work on dynamically extracting information from the call stack and effectively using it to detect exploits. In this paper we propose a new method to do anomaly detection using call stack information. The basic idea is to extract return addresses from the call stack, and generate an abstract execution path between two program execution points. Experiments show that our method can detect some attacks that cannot be detected by other approaches, while its convergence and false positive performance is comparable to or better than the other approaches. We compare our method with other approaches by analyzing their underlying principles and thus achieve a better characterization of their performance, in particular on what and why attacks will be missed by the various approaches.

title: Energy efficient index for querying location-dependent data in mobile broadcast environments
abstract: We are witnessing in recent years growing interest for location-dependent information services among mobile users. We examine the issue of processing location-dependent queries in a mobile broadcast environment. Different from a traditional environment, mobile users are concerned with not only access latencies but also power conservation. The planar point location algorithms and conventional spatial index structures are shown inefficient. We propose a new index data structure, called D-tree, for querying location-dependent data in mobile broadcast environments. The basic idea is to index data regions based on the divisions between them. We describe how to construct the binary D-tree index, how to process location-dependent queries based on this index structure, and how to page the D-tree to fit the packet capacity. The performance of the D-tree is evaluated using both synthetic and real datasets. Experimental results show that the proposed D-tree provides a much better overall performance than the well-known existing schemes such as the R*-tree.

title: Performance evaluation of a wireless hierarchical data dissemination system
abstract: Various techniques have been developed to improve the performance of wireless information services. Techniques such as information broadcasting, caching of frequently accessed data, and point-to-point channels for pull-based data requests are often used to reduce data access time. To efficiently utilize information broadcast, indexing and scheduling schemes are employed for the organization of data broadcast. Most of the studies in the literature focused either on individual technique or a combination of them with some restrictive assumptions. There is no study considering these techniques working together in an integrated manner. In this paper, we propose a dynamic data delivery model for wireless communication environments. An important feature of our model is that data are disseminated through various storage mediums according to the dynamically collected data access patterns. Various results are presented in a set of simulation studies, which give some of the intuitions behind the design of a wireless data delivery system.

title: Early termination in Ben-Or/Tiwari sparse interpolation and a hybrid of Zippel's algorithm

title: Properties of Forward Pruning in Game-Tree Search
abstract: Forward pruning, or selectively searching a subset of moves, is now commonly used in game-playing programs to reduce the number of nodes searched with manageable risk. Forward pruning techniques should consider how pruning errors in a game-tree search propagate to the root to minimize the risk of making errors. In this paper, we explore forward pruning using theoretical analyses and Monte Carlo simulations and report on two findings. Firstly, we find that pruning errors propagate differently depending on the player to move, and show that pruning errors on the opponent's moves are potentially more serious than pruning errors on the player's own moves. This suggests that pruning on the player's own move can be performed more aggressively compared to pruning on the opponent's move. Secondly, we examine the ability of the minimax search to filter away pruning errors and give bounds on the rate of error propagation to the root. We find that if the rate of pruning error is kept constant, the growth of errors with the depth of the tree dominates the filtering effect, therefore suggesting that pruning should be done more aggressively near the root and less aggressively near the leaves.

title: Distributed scalable location data management system based on the GALIS architecture
abstract: A challenging task in the LBS system engineering is to implement a highly scalable system architecture which can manage moderate-size configurations handling thousands of moving items as well as upper-end configurations handling millions of moving items. The architecture named the GALIS is a cluster-based distributed computing system architecture that consists of multiple data processors, each dedicated to keeping records relevant to a different geographical zone and a different time zone. In this paper, we explain a prototype location data management system structuring major components of GALIS by employing the TMO programming scheme, including the execution engine middleware developed to support real-time distributed object programming and real-time distributed computing system design. We present how to generate realistic location sensing reports and how to process such location reports and location-related queries. Some experimental results showing performance factors regarding distributed query processing are also explained.