Internet DRAFT - draft-xibassnez-i2nsf-capability
draft-xibassnez-i2nsf-capability
I2NSF L. Xia
Internet-Draft J. Strassner
Intended status: Standard Track Huawei
Expires: January 5, 2018 C. Basile
PoliTO
D. Lopez
TID
July 3, 2017
Information Model of NSFs Capabilities
draft-xibassnez-i2nsf-capability-02.txt
Abstract
This document defines the concept of an NSF (Network Security
Function) Capability, as well as its information model. Capabilities
are a set of features that are available from a managed entity, and
are represented as data that unambiguously characterizes an NSF.
Capabilities enable management entities to determine the set offer
features from available NSFs that will be used, and simplify the
management of NSFs.
Status of this Memo
This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the
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Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six
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as reference material or to cite them other than as "work in
progress."
This Internet-Draft will expire on January 5, 2018.
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Table of Contents
1. Introduction ................................................... 4
2. Conventions used in this document .............................. 5
2.1. Acronyms .................................................. 5
3. Capability Information Model Design ............................ 6
3.1. Design Principles and ECA Policy Model Overview ........... 6
3.2. Relation with the External Information Model .............. 8
3.3. I2NSF Capability Information Model Theory of Operation ... 10
3.3.1. I2NSF Condition Clause Operator Types ............... 11
3.3.2 Capability Selection and Usage ...................... 12
3.3.3. Capability Algebra ................................. 13
3.4. Initial NSFs Capability Categories ....................... 16
3.4.1. Network Security Capabilities ....................... 16
3.4.2. Content Security Capabilities ....................... 17
3.4.3. Attack Mitigation Capabilities ...................... 17
4. Information Sub-Model for Network Security Capabilities ....... 18
4.1. Information Sub-Model for Network Security ............... 18
4.1.1. Network Security Policy Rule Extensions ............. 19
4.1.2. Network Security Policy Rule Operation .............. 20
4.1.3. Network Security Event Sub-Model .................... 22
4.1.4. Network Security Condition Sub-Model ................ 23
4.1.5. Network Security Action Sub-Model ................... 25
4.2. Information Model for I2NSF Capabilities ................. 26
4.3. Information Model for Content Security Capabilities ...... 27
4.4. Information Model for Attack Mitigation Capabilities ..... 28
5. Security Considerations ....................................... 29
6. IANA Considerations ........................................... 29
7. Contributors .................................................. 29
8. References .................................................... 29
8.1. Normative References ..................................... 29
8.2. Informative References ................................... 30
Appendix A. Network Security Capability Policy Rule Definitions .. 32
A.1. AuthenticationECAPolicyRule Class Definition ............. 32
A.2. AuthorizationECAPolicyRuleClass Definition ............... 34
A.3. AccountingECAPolicyRuleClass Definition .................. 35
A.4. TrafficInspectionECAPolicyRuleClass Definition ........... 37
A.5. ApplyProfileECAPolicyRuleClass Definition ................ 38
A.6. ApplySignatureECAPolicyRuleClass Definition .............. 40
Appendix B. Network Security Event Class Definitions ............. 42
B.1. UserSecurityEvent Class Description ...................... 42
B.1.1. The usrSecEventContent Attribute .................... 42
B.1.2. The usrSecEventFormat Attribute ..................... 42
B.1.3. The usrSecEventType Attribute ....................... 42
B.2. DeviceSecurityEvent Class Description .................... 43
B.2.1. The devSecEventContent Attribute .................... 43
B.2.2. The devSecEventFormat Attribute ..................... 43
B.2.3. The devSecEventType Attribute ....................... 44
B.2.4. The devSecEventTypeInfo[0..n] Attribute ............. 44
B.2.5. The devSecEventTypeSeverity Attribute ............... 44
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Table of Contents (continued)
B.3. SystemSecurityEvent Class Description .................... 44
B.3.1. The sysSecEventContent Attribute .................... 45
B.3.2. The sysSecEventFormat Attribute ..................... 45
B.3.3. The sysSecEventType Attribute ....................... 45
B.4. TimeSecurityEvent Class Description ...................... 45
B.4.1. The timeSecEventPeriodBegin Attribute ............... 46
B.4.2. The timeSecEventPeriodEnd Attribute ................. 46
B.4.3. The timeSecEventTimeZone Attribute .................. 46
Appendix C. Network Security Condition Class Definitions ......... 47
C.1. PacketSecurityCondition .................................. 47
C.1.1. PacketSecurityMACCondition .......................... 47
C.1.1.1. The pktSecCondMACDest Attribute ................ 47
C.1.1.2. The pktSecCondMACSrc Attribute ................. 47
C.1.1.3. The pktSecCondMAC8021Q Attribute ............... 48
C.1.1.4. The pktSecCondMACEtherType Attribute ........... 48
C.1.1.5. The pktSecCondMACTCI Attribute ................. 48
C.1.2. PacketSecurityIPv4Condition ......................... 48
C.1.2.1. The pktSecCondIPv4SrcAddr Attribute ............ 48
C.1.2.2. The pktSecCondIPv4DestAddr Attribute ........... 48
C.1.2.3. The pktSecCondIPv4ProtocolUsed Attribute ....... 48
C.1.2.4. The pktSecCondIPv4DSCP Attribute ............... 48
C.1.2.5. The pktSecCondIPv4ECN Attribute ................ 48
C.1.2.6. The pktSecCondIPv4TotalLength Attribute ........ 49
C.1.2.7. The pktSecCondIPv4TTL Attribute ................ 49
C.1.3. PacketSecurityIPv6Condition ......................... 49
C.1.3.1. The pktSecCondIPv6SrcAddr Attribute ............ 49
C.1.3.2. The pktSecCondIPv6DestAddr Attribute ........... 49
C.1.3.3. The pktSecCondIPv6DSCP Attribute ............... 49
C.1.3.4. The pktSecCondIPv6ECN Attribute ................ 49
C.1.3.5. The pktSecCondIPv6FlowLabel Attribute .......... 49
C.1.3.6. The pktSecCondIPv6PayloadLength Attribute ...... 49
C.1.3.7. The pktSecCondIPv6NextHeader Attribute ......... 50
C.1.3.8. The pktSecCondIPv6HopLimit Attribute ........... 50
C.1.4. PacketSecurityTCPCondition .......................... 50
C.1.4.1. The pktSecCondTCPSrcPort Attribute ............. 50
C.1.4.2. The pktSecCondTCPDestPort Attribute ............ 50
C.1.4.3. The pktSecCondTCPSeqNum Attribute .............. 50
C.1.4.4. The pktSecCondTCPFlags Attribute ............... 50
C.1.5. PacketSecurityUDPCondition ....................... 50
C.1.5.1.1. The pktSecCondUDPSrcPort Attribute ........ 50
C.1.5.1.2. The pktSecCondUDPDestPort Attribute ....... 51
C.1.5.1.3. The pktSecCondUDPLength Attribute ......... 51
C.2. PacketPayloadSecurityCondition ........................... 51
C.3. TargetSecurityCondition .................................. 51
C.4. UserSecurityCondition .................................... 51
C.5. SecurityContextCondition ................................. 52
C.6. GenericContextSecurityCondition .......................... 52
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Table of Contents (continued)
Appendix D. Network Security Action Class Definitions ............. 53
D.1. IngressAction ............................................ 53
D.2. EgressAction ............................................. 53
D.3. ApplyProfileAction ....................................... 53
Appendix E. Geometric Model ...................................... 54
Authors' Addresses ............................................... 57
1. Introduction
The rapid development of virtualized systems requires advanced
security protection in various scenarios. Examples include network
devices in an enterprise network, User Equipment in a mobile network,
devices in the Internet of Things, or residential access users
[I-D.draft-ietf-i2nsf-problem-and-use-cases].
NSFs produced by multiple security vendors provide various security
Capabilities to customers. Multiple NSFs can be combined together to
provide security services over the given network traffic, regardless
of whether the NSFs are implemented as physical or virtual functions.
Security Capabilities describe the set of network security-related
features that are available to use for security policy enforcement
purposes. Security Capabilities are independent of the actual
security control mechanisms that will implement them. Every NSF
registers the set of Capabilities it offers. Security Capabilities
are a market enabler, providing a way to define customized security
protection by unambiguously describing the security features offered
by a given NSF. Moreover, Security Capabilities enable security
functionality to be described in a vendor-neutral manner. That is,
it is not required to refer to a specific product when designing the
network; rather, the functionality characterized by their
Capabilities are considered.
According to [I-D.draft-ietf-i2nsf-framework], there are two types
of I2NSF interfaces available for security policy provisioning:
o Interface between I2NSF users and applications, and a security
controller (Consumer-Facing Interface): this is a service-
oriented interface that provides a communication channel
between consumers of NSF data and services and the network
operator's security controller. This enables security
information to be exchanged between various applications (e.g.,
OpenStack, or various BSS/OSS components) and the security
controller. The design goal of the Consumer-Facing Interface
is to decouple the specification of security services from
their implementation.
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o Interface between NSFs (e.g., firewall, intrusion prevention,
or anti-virus) and the security controller (NSF-Facing
Interface): The NSF-Facing Interface is used to decouple the
security management scheme from the set of NSFs and their
various implementations for this scheme, and is independent
of how the NSFs are implemented (e.g., run in Virtual
Machines or physical appliances). This document defines an
object-oriented information model for network security, content
security, and attack mitigation Capabilities, along with
associated I2NSF Policy objects.
This document is organized as follows. Section 2 defines conventions
and acronyms used. Section 3 discusses the design principles for the
I2NSF Capability information model and related policy model objects.
Section 4 defines the structure of the information model, which
describes the policy and capability objects design; details of the
model elements are contained in the appendices.
2. Conventions used in this document
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
"SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this
document are to be interpreted as described in RFC-2119 [RFC2119].
This document uses terminology defined in
[I-D.draft-ietf-i2nsf-terminology] for security related and I2NSF
scoped terminology.
2.1. Acronyms
AAA: Access control, Authorization, Authentication
ACL: Access Control List
(D)DoD: (Distributed) Denial of Service (attack)
ECA: Event-Condition-Action
FMR: First Matching Rule (resolution strategy)
FW: Firewall
GNSF: Generic Network Security Function
HTTP: HyperText Transfer Protocol
I2NSF: Interface to Network Security Functions
IPS: Intrusion Prevention System
LMR: Last Matching Rule (resolution strategy)
MIME: Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions
NAT: Network Address Translation
NSF: Network Security Function
RPC: Remote Procedure Call
SMA: String Matching Algorithm
URL: Uniform Resource Locator
VPN: Virtual Private Network
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3. Information Model Design
The starting point of the design of the Capability information model
is the categorization of types of security functions. For instance,
experts agree on what is meant by the terms "IPS", "Anti-Virus", and
"VPN concentrator". Network security experts unequivocally refer to
"packet filters" as stateless devices able to allow or deny packet
forwarding based on various conditions (e.g., source and destination
IP addresses, source and destination ports, and IP protocol type
fields) [Alshaer].
However, more information is required in case of other devices, like
stateful firewalls or application layer filters. These devices
filter packets or communications, but there are differences in the
packets and communications that they can categorize and the states
they maintain. Analogous considerations can be applied for channel
protection protocols, where we all understand that they will protect
packets by means of symmetric algorithms whose keys could have been
negotiated with asymmetric cryptography, but they may work at
different layers and support different algorithms and protocols. To
ensure protection, these protocols apply integrity, optionally
confidentiality, anti-reply protections, and authenticate peers.
3.1. Capability Information Model Overview
This document defines a model of security Capabilities that provides
the foundation for automatic management of NSFs. This includes
enabling the security controller to properly identify and manage
NSFs, and allow NSFs to properly declare their functionality, so
that they can be used in the correct way.
Some basic design principles for security Capabilities and the
systems that have to manage them are:
o Independence: each security Capability should be an independent
function, with minimum overlap or dependency on other
Capabilities. This enables each security Capability to be
utilized and assembled together freely. More importantly,
changes to one Capability will not affect other Capabilities.
This follows the Single Responsibility Principle
[Martin] [OODSRP].
o Abstraction: each Capability should be defined in a vendor-
independent manner, and associated to a well-known interface
to provide a standardized ability to describe and report its
processing results. This facilitates multi-vendor
interoperability.
o Automation: the system must have the ability to auto-discover,
auto-negotiate, and auto-update its security Capabilities
(i.e., without human intervention). These features are
especially useful for the management of a large number of
NSFs. They are essential to add smart services (e.g., analysis,
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refinement, Capability reasoning, and optimization) for the
security scheme employed. These features are supported by many
design patterns, including the Observer Pattern [OODOP], the
Mediator Pattern [OODMP], and a set of Message Exchange
Patterns [Hohpe].
o Scalability: the management system must have the Capability to
scale up/down or scale in/out. Thus, it can meet various
performancerequirements derived from changeable network traffic
or service requests. In addition, security Capabilities that are
affected by scalability changes must support reporting statistics
to the security controller to assist its decision on whether it
needs to invoke scaling or not. However, this requirement is for
information only, and is beyond the scope of this document.
Based on the above principles, a set of abstract and vendor-neutral
Capabilities with standard interfaces is defined. This provides a
Capability model that enables a set of NSFs that are required at a
given time to be selected, as well as the unambiguous definition of
the security offered by the set of NSFs used. The security
controller can compare the requirements of users and applications to
the set of Capabilities that are currently available in order to
choose which NSFs are needed to meet those requirements. Note that
this choice is independent of vendor, and instead relies specifically
on the Capabilities (i.e., the description) of the functions
provided. The security controller may also be able to customize the
functionality of selected NSFs.
Furthermore, when an unknown threat (e.g., zero-day exploits and
unknown malware) is reported by a NSF, new Capabilities may be
created, and/or existing Capabilities may be updated (e.g., by
updating its signature and algorithm). This results in enhancing
existing NSFs (and/or creating new NSFs) to address the new threats.
New Capabilities may be sent to and stored in a centralized
repository, or stored separately in a vendor's local repository.
In either case, a standard interface facilitates the update process.
Note that most systems cannot dynamically create a new Capability
without human interaction. This is an area for further study.
3.2. ECA Policy Model Overview
The "Event-Condition-Action" (ECA) policy model is used as the basis
for the design of I2NSF Policy Rules; definitions of all I2NSF
policy-related terms are also defined in
[I-D.draft-ietf-i2nsf-terminology]:
o Event: An Event is any important occurrence in time of a change
in the system being managed, and/or in the environment of the
system being managed. When used in the context of I2NSF
Policy Rules, it is used to determine whether the Condition
clause of the I2NSF Policy Rule can be evaluated or not.
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Examples of an I2NSF Event include time and user actions (e.g.,
logon, logoff, and actions that violate an ACL).
o Condition: A condition is defined as a set of attributes,
features, and/or values that are to be compared with a set of
known attributes, features, and/or values in order to determine
whether or not the set of Actions in that (imperative) I2NSF
Policy Rule can be executed or not. Examples of I2NSF Conditions
include matching attributes of a packet or flow, and comparing
the internal state of an NSF to a desired state.
o Action: An action is used to control and monitor aspects of
flow-based NSFs when the event and condition clauses are
satisfied. NSFs provide security functions by executing various
Actions. Examples of I2NSF Actions include providing intrusion
detection and/or protection, web and flow filtering, and deep
packet inspection for packets and flows.
An I2NSF Policy Rule is made up of three Boolean clauses: an Event
clause, a Condition clause, and an Action clause. A Boolean clause
is a logical statement that evaluates to either TRUE or FALSE. It
may be made up of one or more terms; if more than one term, then a
Boolean clause connects the terms using logical connectives (i.e.,
AND, OR, and NOT). It has the following semantics:
IF <event-clause> is TRUE
IF <condition-clause> is TRUE
THEN execute <action-clause>
END-IF
END-IF
Technically, the "Policy Rule" is really a container that aggregates
the above three clauses, as well as metadata.
The above ECA policy model is very general and easily extensible,
and can avoid potential constraints that could limit the
implementation of generic security Capabilities.
3.3. Relation with the External Information Model
Note: the symbology used from this point forward is taken from
section 3.3 of [I-D.draft-ietf-supa-generic-policy-info-model].
The I2NSF NSF-Facing Interface is in charge of selecting and
managing the NSFs using their Capabilities. This is done using
the following approach:
1) Each NSF registers its Capabilities with the management system
when it "joins", and hence makes its Capabilities available to
the management system;
2) The security controller selects the set of Capabilities
required to meet the needs of the security service from all
available NSFs that it manages;
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3) The security controller uses the Capability information model
to match chosen Capabilities to NSFs, independent of vendor;
4) The security controller takes the above information and
creates or uses one or more data models from the Capability
information model to manage the NSFs;
5) Control and monitoring can then begin.
This assumes that an external information model is used to define
the concept of an ECA Policy Rule and its components (e.g., Event,
Condition, and Action objects). This enables I2NSF Policy Rules
[I-D.draft-ietf-i2nsf-terminology] to be subclassed from an external
information model.
Capabilities are defined as classes (e.g., a set of objects that
exhibit a common set of characteristics and behavior
[I-D.draft-ietf-supa-generic-policy-info-model].
Each Capability is made up of at least one model element (e.g.,
attribute, method, or relationship) that differentiates it from all
other objects in the system. Capabilities are, generically, a type
of metadata (i.e., information that describes, and/or prescribes,
the behavior of objects); hence, it is also assumed that an external
information model is used to define metadata (preferably, in the
form of a class hierarchy). Therefore, it is assumed that
Capabilities are subclassed from an external metadata model.
The Capability sub-model is used for advertising, creating,
selecting, and managing a set of specific security Capabilities
independent of the type and vendor of device that contains the NSF.
That is, the user of the NSF-Facing Interface does not care whether
the NSF is virtualized or hosted in a physical device, who the
vendor of the NSF is, and which set of entities the NSF is
communicating with (e.g., a firewall or an IPS). Instead, the user
only cares about the set of Capabilities that the NSF has, such as
packet filtering or deep packet inspection. The overall structure
is illustrated in the figure below:
+-------------------------+ 0..n 0..n +---------------+
| |/ \ \| External |
| External ECA Info Model + A ----------------+ Metadata |
| |\ / Aggregates /| Info Model |
+-----------+------------+ Metadata +-------+-------+
| / \
| |
/ \ |
Subclasses derived for I2NSF +-----+------+
Security Policies | Capability |
| Sub-Model |
+------------+
Figure 1. The Overall I2NSF Information Model Design
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This draft defines a set of extensions to a generic, external, ECA
Policy Model to represent various NSF ECA Security Policy Rules. It
also defines the Capability Sub-Model; this enables ECA Policy
Rules to control which Capabilities are seen by which actors, and
used by the I2NSF system. Finally, it places requirements on what
type of extensions are required to the generic, external, ECA
information model and metadata models, in order to manage the
lifecycle of I2NSF Capabilities.
Both of the external models shown in Figure 1 could, but do not have
to, be based on the SUPA information model
[I-D.draft-ietf-supa-generic-policy-info-model]. Note that classes in
the Capability Sub-Model will inherit the AggregatesMetadata
aggregation from the External Metadata Information Model.
The external ECA Information Model supplies at least a set of classes
that represent a generic ECA Policy Rule, and a set of classes that
represent Events, Conditions, and Actions that can be aggregated by
the generic ECA Policy Rule. This enables I2NSF to reuse this
generic model for different purposes, as well as refine it (i.e.,
create new subclasses, or add attributes and relationships) to
represent I2NSF-specific concepts.
It is assumed that the external ECA Information Model has the
ability to aggregate metadata. Capabilities are then sub-classed
from an appropriate class in the external Metadata Information Model;
this enables the ECA objects to use the existing aggregation between
them and Metadata to add Metadata to appropriate ECA objects.
Detailed descriptions of each portion of the information model are
given in the following sections.
3.4. I2NSF Capability Information Model: Theory of Operation
Capabilities are typically used to represent NSF functions that can
be invoked. Capabilities are objects, and hence, can be used in the
event, condition, and/or action clauses of an I2NSF ECA Policy Rule.
The I2NSF Capability information model refines a predefined metadata
model; the application of I2NSF Capabilities is done by refining a
predefined ECA Policy Rule information model that defines how to
use, manage, or otherwise manipulate a set of Capabilities. In this
approach, an I2NSF Policy Rule is a container that is made up of
three clauses: an event clause, a condition clause, and an action
clause. When the I2NSF policy engine receives a set of events, it
matches those events to events in active ECA Policy Rules. If the
event matches, then this triggers the evaluation of the condition
clause of the matched I2NSF Policy Rule. The condition clause is
then evaluated; if it matches, then the set of actions in the
matched I2NSF Policy Rule MAY be executed.
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This document defines additional important extensions to both the
external ECA Policy Rule model and the external Metadata model that
are used by the I2NSF Information Model; examples include
resolution strategy, external data, and default action. All these
extensions come from the geometric model defined in [Bas12]. A more
detailed description is provided in Appendix E; a summary of the
important points follows.
Formally, given a set of actions in an I2NSF Policy Rule, the
resolution strategy maps all the possible subsets of actions to an
outcome. In other words, the resolution strategy is included in the
I2NSF Policy Rule to decide how to evaluate all the actions in a
particular I2NSF Policy Rule. This is then extended to include all
possible I2NSF Policy Rules that can be applied in a particular
scenario. Hence, the final action set from all I2NSF Policy Rules
is deduced.
Some concrete examples of resolution strategy are the First Matching
Rule (FMR) or Last Matching Rule (LMR) resolution strategies. When
no rule matches a packet, the NSFs may select a default action, if
they support one.
Resolution strategies may use, besides intrinsic rule data (i.e.,
event, condition, and action clauses), "external data" associated to
each rule, such as priority, identity of the creator, and creation
time. Two examples of this are attaching metadata to the policy
action and/or policy rule, and associating the policy rule with
another class to convey such information.
3.4.1. I2NSF Condition Clause Operator Types
After having analyzed the literature and some existing NSFs, the
types of selectors are categorized as exact-match, range-based,
regex-based, and custom-match [Bas15][Lunt].
Exact-match selectors are (unstructured) sets: elements can only be
checked for equality, as no order is defined on them. As an example,
the protocol type field of the IP header is an unordered set of
integer values associated to protocols. The assigned protocol
numbers are maintained by the IANA (http://www.iana.org/assignments/
protocol-numbers/protocol-numbers.xhtml).
In this selector, it is only meaningful to specify condition clauses
that use either the "equals" or "not equals" operators:
proto = tcp, udp (protocol type field equals to TCP or UDP)
proto != tcp (protocol type field different from TCP)
No other operators are allowed on exact-match selectors. For example,
the following is an invalid condition clause, even if protocol types
map to integers:
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proto < 62 (invalid condition)
Range-based selectors are ordered sets where it is possible to
naturally specify ranges as they can be easily mapped to integers.
As an example, the ports in the TCP protocol may be represented with
a range-based selector (e.g., 1024-65535). As another example, the
following are examples of valid condition clauses:
source_port = 80
source_port < 1024
source_port < 30000 && source_port >= 1024
We include, in range-based selectors, the category of selectors that
have been defined by Al-Shaer et al. as "prefix-match" [Alshaer].
These selectors allow the specification of ranges of values by means
of simple regular expressions. The typical case is the IP address
selector (e.g., 10.10.1.*).
There is no need to distinguish between prefix match and range-based
selectors; for example, the address range "10.10.1.*" maps to
"[10.10.1.0,10.10.1.255]".
Another category of selector types includes those based on regular
expressions. This selector type is used frequently at the application
layer, where data are often represented as strings of text. The
regex-based selector type also includes string-based selectors, where
matching is evaluated using string matching algorithms (SMA)
[Cormen]. Indeed, for our purposes, string matching can be mapped to
regular expressions, even if in practice SMA are much faster. For
instance, Squid (http://www.squid-cache.org/), a popular Web caching
proxy that offers various access control Capabilities, allows the
definition of conditions on URLs that can be evaluated with SMA
(e.g., dstdomain) or regex matching (e.g., dstdom_regex).
As an example, the condition clause:
"URL = *.website.*"
matches all the URLs that contain a subdomain named website and the
ones whose path contain the string ".website.". As another example,
the condition clause:
"MIME_type = video/*"
matches all MIME objects whose type is video.
Finally, the idea of a custom check selector is introduced. For
instance, malware analysis can look for specific patterns, and
returns a Boolean value if the pattern is found or not.
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In order to be properly used by high-level policy-based processing
systems (such as reasoning systems and policy translation systems),
these custom check selectors can be modeled as black-boxes (i.e., a
function that has a defined set of inputs and outputs for a
particular state), which provide an associated Boolean output.
More examples of custom check selectors will be presented in the
next versions of the draft. Some examples are already present in
Section 6.
3.4.2. Capability Selection and Usage
Capability selection and usage are based on the set of security
traffic classification and action features that an NSF provides;
these are defined by the Capability model. If the NSF has the
classification features needed to identify the packets/flows
required by a policy, and can enforce the needed actions, then
that particular NSF is capable of enforcing the policy.
NSFs may also have specific characteristics that automatic processes
or administrators need to know when they have to generate
configurations, like the available resolution strategies and the
possibility to set default actions.
The Capability information model can be used for two purposes:
describing the features provided by generic security functions, and
describing the features provided by specific products. The term
Generic Network Security Function (GNSF) refers to the classes of
security functions that are known by a particular system. The idea
is to have generic components whose behavior is well understood, so
that the generic component can be used even if it has some vendor-
specific functions. These generic functions represent a point of
interoperability, and can be provided by any product that offers the
required Capabilities. GNSF examples include packet filter, URL
filter, HTTP filter, VPN gateway, anti-virus, anti-malware, content
filter, monitoring, and anonymity proxy; these will be described
later in a revision of this draft as well as in an upcoming data
model contribution.
The next section will introduce the algebra to define the
information model of Capability registration. This associates
NSFs to Capabilities, and checks whether a NSF has the
Capabilities needed to enforce policies.
3.4.3. Capability Algebra
We introduce a Capability Algebra to ensure that the actions of
different policy rules do not conflict with each other.
Formally, two I2NSF Policy Actions conflict with each other if:
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o the event clauses of each evaluate to TRUE
o the condition clauses of each evaluate to TRUE
o the action clauses affect the same object in different ways
For example, if we have two Policies:
P1: During 8am-6pm, if traffic is external, then run through FW
P2: During 7am-8pm, conduct anti-malware investigation
There is no conflict between P1 and P2, since the actions are
different. However, consider these two policies:
P3: During 8am-6pm, John gets GoldService
P4: During 10am-4pm, FTP from all users gets BronzeService
P3 and P4 are now in conflict, because between the hours of 10am and
4pm, the actions of P3 and P4 are different and apply to the same
user (i.e., John).
Let us define the concept of a "matched" policy rule as one in which
its event and condition clauses both evaluate to true. This enables
the actions in this policy rule to be evaluated. Then, the
conflict matrix is defined by a 5-tuple {Ac, Cc, Ec, RSc, Dc},
where:
o Ac is the set of Actions currently available from the NSF;
o Cc is the set of Conditions currently available from the NSF;
o Ec is the set of Events the NSF is able to respond to.
Therefore, the event clause of an I2NSF ECA Policy Rule that is
written for an NSF will only allow a set of designated events
in Ec. For compatibility purposes, we will assume that if Ec={}
(that is, Ec is empty), the NSF only accepts CA policies.
o RSc is the set of Resolution Strategies that can be used to
specify how to resolve conflicts that occur between the actions
of the same or different policy rules that are matched and
contained in this particular NSF;
o Dc defines the notion of a Default action that can be used to
specify a predefined action when no other alternative action
was matched by the currently executing I2NSF Policy Rule. An
analogy is the use of a default statement in a C switch
statement. This field of the Capability algebra can take the
following values:
- An explicit action (that has been predefined; typically,
this means that it is fixed and not configurable), denoted
as Dc ={a}. In this case, the NSF will always use the
action as as the default action.
- A set of explicit actions, denoted Dc={a1,a2, ...};
typically, this means that any **one** action can be used
as the default action. This enables the policy writer to
choose one of a predefined set of actions {a1, a2, ...} to
serve as the default action.
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- A fully configurable default action, denoted as Dc={F}.
Here, F is a dummy symbol (i.e., a placeholder value) that
can be used to indicate that the default action can be
freely selected by the policy editor from the actions Ac
available at the NSF. In other words, one of the actions
Ac may be selected by the policy writer to act as the
default action.
- No default action, denoted as Dc={}, for cases where the
NSF does not allow the explicit selection of a default
action.
*** Note to WG: please review the following paragraphs
*
* Interesting Capability concepts that could be considered for a next
* version of the Capability model and algebra include:
*
* o Event clause representation (e.g., conjunctive vs. disjunctive
* normal form for Boolean clauses)
* o Event clause evaluation function, which would enable more
* complex expressions than simple Boolean expressions to be used
*
*
* o Condition clause representation (e.g., conjunctive vs.
* disjunctive normal form for Boolean clauses)
* o Condition clause evaluation function, which would enable more
* complex expressions than simple Boolean expressions to be used
* o Action clause evaluation strategies (e.g., execute first
* action only, execute last action only, execute all actions,
* execute all actions until an action fails)
* o The use of metadata, which can be associated to both an I2NSF
* Policy Rule as well as objects contained in the I2NSF Policy
* Rule (e.g., an action), that describe the object and/or
* prescribe behavior. Descriptive examples include adding
* authorship information and defining a time period when an NSF
* can be used to be defined; prescriptive examples include
* defining rule priorities and/or ordering.
*
* Given two sets of Capabilities, denoted as
*
* cap1=(Ac1,Cc1,Ec1,RSc1,Dc1) and
* cap2=(Ac2,Cc2,Ec2,RSc2,Dc2),
*
* two set operations are defined for manipulating Capabilities:
*
* o Capability addition:
* cap1+cap2 = {Ac1 U Ac2, Cc1 U Cc2, Ec1 U Ec2, RSc1, Dc1}
* o Capability subtraction:
* cap1-cap2 = {Ac1 \ Ac2, Cc1 \ Cc2, Ec1 \ Ec2, RSc1, Dc1}
*
* In the above formulae, "U" is the set union operator and "\" is the
* set difference operator.
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* The addition and subtraction of Capabilities are defined as the
* addition (set union) and subtraction (set difference) of both the
* Capabilities and their associated actions. Note that **only** the
* leftmost (in this case, the first matched policy rule) Resolution
* Strategy and Default Action are used.
*
* Note: actions, events, and conditions are **symmetric**. This means
* that when two matched policy rules are merged, the resultant actions
* and Capabilities are defined as the union of each individual matched
* policy rule. However, both resolution strategies and default actions
* are **asymmetric** (meaning that in general, they can **not** be
* combined, as one has to be chosen). In order to simplify this, we
* have chosen that the **leftmost** resolution strategy and the
* **leftmost** default action are chosen. This enables the developer
* to view the leftmost matched rule as the "base" to which other
* elements are added.
*
* As an example, assume that a packet filter Capability, Cpf, is
* defined. Further, assume that a second Capability, called Ctime,
* exists, and that it defines time-based conditions. Suppose we need
* to construct a new generic packet filter, Cpfgen, that adds
* time-based conditions to Cpf.
*
*
* Conceptually, this is simply the addition of the Cpf and Ctime
* Capabilities, as follows:
* Apf = {Allow, Deny}
* Cpf = {IPsrc,IPdst,Psrc,Pdst,protType}
* Epf = {}
* RSpf = {FMR}
* Dpf = {A1}
*
* Atime = {Allow, Deny, Log}
* Ctime = {timestart, timeend, datestart, datestop}
* Etime = {}
* RStime = {LMR}
* Dtime = {A2}
*
* Then, Cpfgen is defined as:
* Cpfgen = {Apf U Atime, Cpf U Ctime, Epf U Etime, RSpf, Dpf}
* = {Allow, Deny, Log},
* {{IPsrc, IPdst, Psrc, Pdst, protType} U
* {timestart, timeend, datestart, datestop}},
* {},
* {FMR},
* {A1}
*
* In other words, Cpfgen provides three actions (Allow, Deny, Log),
* filters traffic based on a 5-tuple that is logically ANDed with a
* time period, and uses FMR; it provides A1 as a default action, and
* it does not react to events.
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* Note: We are investigating, for a next revision of this draft, the
* possibility to add further operations that do not follow the
* symmetric vs. asymmetric properties presented in the previous note.
* We are looking for use cases that may justify the complexity added
* by the availability of more Capability manipulation operations.
*
*** End Note to WG
3.5. Initial NSFs Capability Categories
The following subsections define three common categories of
Capabilities: network security, content security, and attack
mitigation. Future versions of this document may expand both the
number of categories as well as the types of Capabilities within a
given category.
3.5.1. Network Security Capabilities
Network security is a category that describes the inspecting and
processing of network traffic based on the use of pre-defined
security policies.
The inspecting portion may be thought of as a packet-processing
engine that inspects packets traversing networks, either directly or
in the context of flows with which the packet is associated. From
the perspective of packet-processing, implementations differ in the
depths of packet headers and/or payloads they can inspect, the
various flow and context states they can maintain, and the actions
that can be applied to the packets or flows.
3.5.2. Content Security Capabilities
Content security is another category of security Capabilities
applied to the application layer. Through analyzing traffic contents
carried in, for example, the application layer, content security
Capabilities can be used to identify various security functions that
are required. These include defending against intrusion, inspecting
for viruses, filtering malicious URL or junk email, blocking illegal
web access, or preventing malicious data retrieval.
Generally, each type of threat in the content security category has
a set of unique characteristics, and requires handling using a set
of methods that are specific to that type of content. Thus, these
Capabilities will be characterized by their own content-specific
security functions.
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3.5.3. Attack Mitigation Capabilities
This category of security Capabilities is used to detect and mitigate
various types of network attacks. Today's common network attacks can
be classified into the following sets:
o DDoS attacks:
- Network layer DDoS attacks: Examples include SYN flood, UDP
flood, ICMP flood, IP fragment flood, IPv6 Routing header
attack, and IPv6 duplicate address detection attack;
- Application layer DDoS attacks: Examples include HTTP flood,
https flood, cache-bypass HTTP floods, WordPress XML RPC
floods, and ssl DDoS.
o Single-packet attacks:
- Scanning and sniffing attacks: IP sweep, port scanning, etc.
- malformed packet attacks: Ping of Death, Teardrop, etc.
- special packet attacks: Oversized ICMP, Tracert, IP timestamp
option packets, etc.
Each type of network attack has its own network behaviors and
packet/flow characteristics. Therefore, each type of attack needs a
special security function, which is advertised as a set of
Capabilities, for detection and mitigation. The implementation and
management of this category of security Capabilities of attack
mitigation control is very similar to the content security control
category. A standard interface, through which the security controller
can choose and customize the given security Capabilities according to
specific requirements, is essential.
4. Information Sub-Model for Network Security Capabilities
The purpose of the Capability Information Sub-Model is to define the
concept of a Capability, and enable Capabilities to be aggregated to
appropriate objects. The following sections present the Network
Security, Content Security, and Attack Mitigation Capability
sub-models.
4.1. Information Sub-Model for Network Security
The purpose of the Network Security Information Sub-Model is to
define how network traffic is defined, and determine if one or more
network security features need to be applied to the traffic or not.
Its basic structure is shown in the following figure:
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+---------------------+
+---------------+ 1..n 1..n | |
| |/ \ \| A Common Superclass |
| ECAPolicyRule + A -------------+ for ECA Objects |
| |\ / /| |
+-------+-------+ +---------+-----------+
/ \ / \
| |
| |
(subclasses to define Network (subclasses of Event,
Security ECA Policy Rules Condition, and Action Objects
extensibly, so that other for Network Security
Policy Rules can be added) Policy Rules)
Figure 2. Network Security Information Sub-Model Overview
In the above figure, the ECAPolicyRule, along with the Event,
Condition, and Action Objects, are defined in the external ECA
Information Model. The Network Security Sub-Model extends all of
these objects in order to define security-specific ECA Policy Rules,
as well as extensions to the (generic) Event, Condition, and
Action objects.
An I2NSF Policy Rule is a special type of Policy Rule that is in
event-condition-action (ECA) form. It consists of the Policy Rule,
components of a Policy Rule (e.g., events, conditions, actions, and
some extensions like resolution policy, default action and external
data), and optionally, metadata. It can be applied to both uni- and
bi-directional traffic across the NSF.
Each rule is triggered by one or more events. If the set of events
evaluates to true, then a set of conditions are evaluated and, if
true, enable a set of actions to be executed. This takes the
following conceptual form:
IF <event-clause> is TRUE
IF <condition-clause> is TRUE
THEN execute <action-clause>
END-IF
END-IF
In the above example, the Event, Condition, and Action portions of a
Policy Rule are all **Boolean Clauses**. Hence, they can contain
combinations of terms connected by the three logical connectives
operators (i.e., AND, OR, NOT). An example is:
((SLA==GOLD) AND ((numPackets>burstRate) OR NOT(bwAvail<minBW)))
Note that Metadata, such as Capabilities, can be aggregated by I2NSF
ECA Policy Rules.
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4.1.1. Network Security Policy Rule Extensions
Figure 3 shows an example of more detailed design of the ECA Policy
Rule subclasses that are contained in the Network Security
Information Sub-Model, which just illustrates how more specific
Network Security Policies are inherited and extended from the
SecurityECAPolicyRule class. Any new kinds of specific Network
Security Policy can be created by following the same pattern of
class design as below.
+---------------+
| External |
| ECAPolicyRule |
+-------+-------+
/ \
|
|
+------------+----------+
| SecurityECAPolicyRule |
+------------+----------+
|
|
+----+-----+--------+-----+----+---------+---------+--- ...
| | | | | |
| | | | | |
+------+-------+ | +-----+-------+ | +------+------+ |
|Authentication| | | Accounting | | |ApplyProfile | |
|ECAPolicyRule | | |ECAPolicyRule| | |ECAPolicyRule| |
+--------------+ | +-------------+ | +-------------+ |
| | |
+------+------+ +------+------+ +--------------+
|Authorization| | Traffic | |ApplySignature|
|ECAPolicyRule| | Inspection | |ECAPolicyRule |
+-------------+ |ECAPolicyRule| +--------------+
+-------------+
Figure 3. Network Security Info Sub-Model ECAPolicyRule Extensions
The SecurityECAPolicyRule is the top of the I2NSF ECA Policy Rule
hierarchy. It inherits from the (external) generic ECA Policy Rule,
and represents the specialization of this generic ECA Policy Rule to
add security-specific ECA Policy Rules. The SecurityECAPolicyRule
contains all of the attributes, methods, and relationships defined in
its superclass, and adds additional concepts that are required for
Network Security (these will be defined in the next version of this
draft). The six SecurityECAPolicyRule subclasses extend the
SecurityECAPolicyRule class to represent six different types of
Network Security ECA Policy Rules. It is assumed that the (external)
generic ECAPolicyRule class defines basic information in the form of
attributes, such as an unique object ID, as well as a description
and other necessary information.
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*** Note to WG
*
* The design in Figure 3 represents the simplest conceptual design
* for network security. An alternative model would be to use a
* software pattern (e.g., the Decorator pattern); this would result
* in the SecurityECAPolicyRule class being "wrapped" by one or more
* of the six subclasses shown in Figure 3. The advantage of such a
* pattern is to reduce the number of active objects at runtime, as
* well as offer the ability to combine multiple actions of different
* policy rules (e.g., inspect traffic and then apply a filter) into
* one. The disadvantage is that it is a more complex software design.
* The design team is requesting feedback from the WG regarding this.
*
*** End of Note to WG
It is assumed that the (external) generic ECA Policy Rule is
abstract; the SecurityECAPolicyRule is also abstract. This enables
data model optimizations to be made while making this information
model detailed but flexible and extensible. For example, abstract
classes may be collapsed into concrete classes.
The SecurityECAPolicyRule defines network security policy as a
container that aggregates Event, Condition, and Action objects,
which are described in Section 4.1.3, 4.1.4, and 4.1.5,
respectively. Events, Conditions, and Actions can be generic or
security-specific.
Brief class descriptions of these six ECA Policy Rules are provided
in Appendix A.
4.1.2. Network Security Policy Rule Operation
A Network Security Policy consists of one or more ECA Policy Rules
formed from the information model described above. In simpler cases,
where the Event and Condition clauses remain unchanged, then the
action of one Policy Rule may invoke additional network security
actions from other Policy Rules. Network security policy examines
and performs basic processing of the traffic as follows:
1. The NSF evaluates the Event clause of a given
SecurityECAPolicyRule (which can be generic or specific to
security, such as those in Figure 3). It may use security
Event objects to do all or part of this evaluation, which are
defined in section 4.1.3. If the Event clause evaluates to
TRUE, then the Condition clause of this SecurityECAPolicyRule
is evaluated; otherwise, the execution of this
SecurityECAPolicyRule is stopped, and the next
SecurityECAPolicyRule (if one exists) is evaluated.
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2. The Condition clause is then evaluated. It may use security
Condition objects to do all or part of this evaluation, which
are defined in section 4.1.4. If the Condition clause
evaluates to TRUE, it is defined as "matching" the
SecurityECAPolicyRule; otherwise, execution of this
SecurityECAPolicyRule is stopped, and the next
SecurityECAPolicyRule (if one exists) is evaluated.
3. The set of actions to be executed are retrieved, and then the
resolution strategy is used to define their execution order.
This process includes using any optional external data
associated with the SecurityECAPolicyRule.
4. Execution then takes one of the following three forms:
a. If one or more actions is selected, then the NSF may
perform those actions as defined by the resolution
strategy. For example, the resolution strategy may only
allow a single action to be executed (e.g., FMR or LMR),
or it may allow all actions to be executed (optionally,
in a particular order). In these and other cases, the NSF
Capability MUST clearly define how execution will be done.
It may use security Action objects to do all or part of
this execution, which are defined in section 4.1.5. If the
basic Action is permit or mirror, the NSF firstly performs
that function, and then checks whether certain other
security Capabilities are referenced in the rule. If yes,
go to step 5. If no, the traffic is permitted.
b. If no actions are selected, and if a default action exists,
then the default action is performed. Otherwise, no actions
are performed.
c. Otherwise, the traffic is denied.
5. If other security Capabilities (e.g., the conditions and/or
actions implied by Anti-virus or IPS profile NSFs) are
referenced in the action set of the SecurityECAPolicyRule, the
NSF can be configured to use the referenced security
Capabilities (e.g., check conditions or enforce actions).
Execution then terminates.
One policy or rule can be applied multiple times to different
managed objects (e.g., links, devices, networks, VPNS). This not
only guarantees consistent policy enforcement, but also decreases
the configuration workload.
4.1.3. Network Security Event Sub-Model
Figure 4 shows a more detailed design of the Event subclasses that
are contained in the Network Security Information Sub-Model.
The four Event classes shown in Figure 4 extend the (external)
generic Event class to represent Events that are of interest to
Network Security. It is assumed that the (external) generic Event
class defines basic Event information in the form of attributes,
such as a unique event ID, a description, as well as the date and
time that the event occurred.
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+---------------------+
+---------------+ 1..n 1..n| |
| |/ \ \| A Common Superclass |
| ECAPolicyRule + A ---------+ for ECA Objects |
| |\ / /| |
+---------------+ +---------+-----------+
/ \
|
|
+---------------+-----------+------+
| | |
| | |
+-----+----+ +------+------+ +-----+-----+
| An Event | | A Condition | | An Action |
| Class | | Class | | Class |
+-----+----+ +-------------+ +-----------+
/ \
|
|
+-----+---------+----------------+--------------+-- ...
| | | |
| | | |
+-------+----+ +--------+-----+ +--------+-----+ +------+-----+
|UserSecurity| | Device | | System | |TimeSecurity|
| Event | | SecurityEvent| | SecurityEvent| | Event |
+------------+ +--------------+ +--------------+ +------------+
Figure 4. Network Security Info Sub-Model Event Class Extensions
The following are assumptions that define the functionality of the
generic Event class. If desired, these could be defined as
attributes in a SecurityEvent class (which would be a subclass of
the generic Event class, and a superclass of the four Event classes
shown in Figure 4). However, this makes it harder to use any
generic Event model with the I2NSF events. Assumptions are:
- All four SecurityEvent subclasses are concrete
- The generic Event class uses the composite pattern, so
individual Events as well as hierarchies of Events are
available (the four subclasses in Figure 4 would be
subclasses of the Atomic Event class); otherwise, a mechanism
is needed to be able to group Events into a collection
- The generic Event class has a mechanism to uniquely identify
the source of the Event
- The generic Event class has a mechanism to separate header
information from its payload
- The generic Event class has a mechanism to attach zero or more
metadata objects to it
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*** Note to WG:
*
* The design in Figure 4 represents the simplest conceptual design
* design for describing Security Events. An alternative model would
* be to use a software pattern (e.g., the Decorator pattern); this
* would result in the SecurityEvent class being "wrapped" by one or
* more of the four subclasses shown in Figure 4. The advantage of
* such a pattern is to reduce the number of active objects at runtime,
* as well as offer the ability to combine multiple events of different
* types into one. The disadvantage is that it is a more complex
* software design.
*
*** End of Note to WG
Brief class descriptions are provided in Appendix B.
4.1.4. Network Security Condition Sub-Model
Figure 5 shows a more detailed design of the Condition subclasses
that are contained in the Network Security Information Sub-Model.
The six Condition classes shown in Figure 5 extend the (external)
generic Condition class to represent Conditions that are of interest
to Network Security. It is assumed that the (external) generic
Condition class is abstract, so that data model optimizations may be
defined. It is also assumed that the generic Condition class defines
basic Condition information in the form of attributes, such as a
unique object ID, a description, as well as a mechanism to attach
zero or more metadata objects to it. While this could be defined as
attributes in a SecurityCondition class (which would be a subclass
of the generic Condition class, and a superclass of the six
Condition classes shown in Figure 5), this makes it harder to use
any generic Condition model with the I2NSF conditions.
*** Note to WG:
*
* The design in Figure 5 represents the simplest conceptual design
* for describing Security Conditions. An alternative model would be
* to use a software pattern (e.g., the Decorator pattern); this would
* result in the SecurityCondition class being "wrapped" by one or
* more of the six subclasses shown in Figure 5. The advantage of such
* a pattern is to reduce the number of active objects at runtime, as
* well as offer the ability to combine multiple conditions of
* different types into one. The disadvantage is that it is a more
* complex software design.
* The design team is requesting feedback from he WG regarding this.
*
*** End of Note to WG
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+---------------------+
+---------------+ 1..n 1..n | |
| |/ \ \| A Common Superclass |
| ECAPolicyRule+ A -------------+ for ECA Objects |
| |\ / /| |
+-------+-------+ +-----------+---------+
/ \
|
|
+--------------+----------+----+
| | |
| | |
+-----+----+ +------+------+ +-----+-----+
| An Event | | A Condition | | An Action |
| Class | | Class | | Class |
+----------+ +------+------+ +-----------+
/ \
|
|
+--------+----------+------+---+---------+--------+--- ...
| | | | | |
| | | | | |
+-----+-----+ | +-------+-------+ | +------+-----+ |
| Packet | | | PacketPayload | | | Target | |
| Security | | | Security | | | Security | |
| Condition | | | Condition | | | Condition | |
+-----------+ | +---------------+ | +------------+ |
| | |
+------+-------+ +----------+------+ +--------+-------+
| UserSecurity | | SecurityContext | | GenericContext |
| Condition | | Condition | | Condition |
+--------------+ +-----------------+ +----------------+
Figure 5. Network Security Info Sub-Model Condition Class Extensions
Brief class descriptions are provided in Appendix C.
4.1.5. Network Security Action Sub-Model
Figure 6 shows a more detailed design of the Action subclasses that
are contained in the Network Security Information Sub-Model.
The four Action classes shown in Figure 6 extend the (external)
generic Action class to represent Actions that perform a Network
Security Control function.
The three Action classes shown in Figure 6 extend the (external)
generic Action class to represent Actions that are of interest to
Network Security. It is assumed that the (external) generic Action
class is abstract, so that data model optimizations may be defined.
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+---------------------+
+---------------+ 1..n 1..n | |
| |/ \ \| A Common Superclass |
| ECAPolicyRule+ A -------------+ for ECA Objects |
| |\ / /| |
+---------------+ +-----------+---------+
/ \
|
|
+--------------+--------+------+
| | |
| | |
+-----+----+ +------+------+ +-----+-----+
| An Event | | A Condition | | An Action |
| Class | | Class | | Class |
+----------+ +-------------+ +-----+-----+
/ \
|
|
+-----------------+---------------+------- ...
| | |
| | |
+---+-----+ +----+---+ +------+-------+
| Ingress | | Egress | | ApplyProfile |
| Action | | Action | | Action |
+---------+ +--------+ +--------------+
Figure 6. Network Security Info Sub-Model Action Extensions
It is also assumed that the generic Action class defines basic
Action information in the form of attributes, such as a unique
object ID, a description, as well as a mechanism to attach zero or
more metadata objects to it. While this could be defined as
attributes in a SecurityAction class (which would be a subclass of
the generic Action class, and a superclass of the six Action classes
shown in Figure 6), this makes it harder to use any generic Action
model with the I2NSF actions.
*** Note to WG
* The design in Figure 6 represents the simplest conceptual design
* for describing Security Actions. An alternative model would be to
* use a software pattern (e.g., the Decorator pattern); this would
* result in the SecurityAction class being "wrapped" by one or more
* of the three subclasses shown in Figure 6. The advantage of such a
* pattern is to reduce the number of active objects at runtime, as
* well as offer the ability to combine multiple actions of different
* types into one. The disadvantage is that it is a more complex
* software design.
* The design team is requesting feedback from the WG regarding this.
*** End of Note to WG
Brief class descriptions are provided in Appendix D.
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4.2. Information Model for I2NSF Capabilities
The I2NSF Capability Model is made up of a number of Capabilities
that represent various content security and attack mitigation
functions. Each Capability protects against a specific type of
threat in the application layer. This is shown in Figure 7.
+-------------------------+ 0..n 0..n +---------------+
| |/ \ \| External |
| External ECA Info Model + A ----------------+ Metadata |
| |\ / Aggregates /| Info Model |
+----+--------------------+ Metadata +-----+---------+
| / \
| |
/ \ |
Subclasses +------------------------------------+-----------+
derived | Capability | |
for I2NSF | Sub-Model +----------+---------+ |
Policy Rules | | SecurityCapability | |
| +----------+---------+ |
| | |
| | |
| +----------------------+---+ |
| | | |
| +--------+---------+ +----------+--------+ |
| | Content Security | | Attack Mitigation | |
| | Capabilities | | Capabilities | |
| +------------------+ +-------------------+ |
+------------------------------------------------+
Figure 7. I2NSF Security Capability High-Level Model
Figure 7 shows a common I2NSF Security Capability class, called
SecurityCapability. This enables us to add common attributes,
relationships, and behavior to this class without affecting the
design of the external metadata information model. All I2NSF
Security Capabilities are then subclassed from the
SecuritCapability class.
Note: the SecurityCapability class will be defined in the next
version of this draft, after feedback from the WG is obtained.
4.3. Information Model for Content Security Capabilities
Content security is composed of a number of distinct security
Capabilities; each such Capability protects against a specific type
of threat in the application layer. Content security is a type of
Generic Network Security Function (GNSF), which summarizes a
well-defined set of security Capabilities, and was shown in Figure 7.
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Figure 8 shows exemplary types of the content security GNSF.
+--------------------------------------------------------------+
| +--------------------+ |
| Capability | SecurityCapability | |
| Sub-Model: +---------+----------+ |
| Content Security / \ |
| | |
| | |
| +-------+----------+----------+---------------+ |
| | | | | |
| +-----+----+ | +-------+----+ +-------+------+ |
| |Anti-Virus| | | Intrusion | | Attack | |
| |Capability| | | Prevention | | Mitigation | |
| +----------+ | | Capability | | Capabilities | |
| | +------------+ +--------------+ |
| | |
| +--------+----+------------+-----------+--------+ |
| | | | | | |
| +----+-----+ +-----+----+ +-----+----+ +----+-----+ | |
| | URL | | Mail | | File | | Data | | |
| |Filtering | |Filtering | |Filtering | |Filtering | | |
| |Capability| |Capability| |Capability| |Capability| | |
| +----------+ +----------+ +----------+ +----------+ | |
| | |
| +----------------+------------------+----+ |
| | | | |
| +------+------+ +------+------+ +---------+---------+ |
| |PacketCapture| |FileIsolation| |ApplicationBehavior| |
| | Capability | | Capability | | Capability | |
| +-------------+ +-------------+ +-------------------+ |
+--------------------------------------------------------------+
Figure 8. Network Security Capability Information Model
The detailed description about a standard interface, and the
parameters for all the security Capabilities of this category, will
be defined in a future version of this document.
4.4. Information Model for Attack Mitigation Capabilities
Attack mitigation is composed of a number of GNSFs; each one
protects against a specific type of network attack. Attack
Mitigation security is a type of GNSF, which summarizes a
well-defined set of security Capabilities, and was shown in
Figure 7. Figure 9 shows exemplary types of Attack Mitigation GNSFs.
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+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| +--------------------+ |
| Capability | SecurityCapability | |
| Sub-Model: +---------+----------+ |
| Attack Mitigation / \ |
| | |
| | |
| +-------+--------+------------+-------------+ |
| | | | | |
| +-----+----+ | +-----+----+ +-------+------+ |
| | SSLDDoS | | | PortScan | | Content | |
| |Capability| | |Capability| | Security | |
| +----------+ | +----------+ | Capabilities | |
| | +--------------+ |
| | |
| +--------+----+------------+-----------+--------+ |
| | | | | | |
| +----+-----+ +-----+----+ +-----+----+ +----+-----+ | |
| | SYNFlood | | UDPFlood | |ICMPFlood | | WebFlood | | |
| |Capability| |Capability| |Capability| |Capability| | |
| +----------+ +----------+ +----------+ +----------+ | |
| | |
| +-----------------+--------------+-----------+ |
| | | | |
| +-------+-------+ +-------+------+ +-----+-----+ +-----+----+ |
| |IPFragmentFlood| |DNSAmplication| |PingOfDeath| | IPSweep | |
| | Capability | | Capability | |Capability | |Capability| |
| +---------------+ +--------------+ +-----------+ +----------+ |
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
Figure 9. Attack Mitigation Capability Information Model
The detailed description about a standard interface, and the
parameters for all the security Capabilities of this category, will
be defined in a future version of this document.
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5. Security Considerations
The security Capability policy information sent to NSFs should be
protected by a secure communication channel, to ensure its
confidentiality and integrity. Note that the NSFs and security
controller can all be spoofed, which leads to undesirable results
(e.g., security policy leakage from security controller, or a spoofed
security controller sending false information to mislead the NSFs).
Hence, mutual authentication MUST be supported to protected against
this kind of threat. The current mainstream security technologies
(i.e., TLS, DTLS, and IPSEC) can be employed to protect against the
above threats.
In addition, to defend against DDoS attacks caused by a hostile
security controller sending too many configuration messages to the
NSFs, rate limiting or similar mechanisms should be considered.
6. IANA Considerations
TBD
7. Contributors
The following people contributed to creating this document, and are
listed below in alphabetical order:
Antonio Lioy (Politecnico di Torino)
Dacheng Zhang (Huawei)
Edward Lopez (Fortinet)
Fulvio Valenza (Politecnico di Torino)
Kepeng Li (Alibaba)
Luyuan Fang (Microsoft)
Nicolas Bouthors (QoSmos)
8. References
8.1. Normative References
[RFC2119]
Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement
Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.
[RFC3539]
Aboba, B., and Wood, J., "Authentication, Authorization, and
Accounting (AAA) Transport Profile", RFC 3539, June 2003.
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8.2. Informative References
[RFC2975]
Aboba, B., et al., "Introduction to Accounting Management",
RFC 2975, October 2000.
[I-D.draft-ietf-i2nsf-problem-and-use-cases]
Hares, S., et.al., "I2NSF Problem Statement and Use cases",
draft-ietf-i2nsf-problem-and-use-cases-16, May 2017.
[I-D.draft-ietf-i2nsf-framework]
Lopez, E., et.al., "Framework for Interface to Network Security
Functions", draft-ietf-i2nsf-framework-06, July, 2017.
[I-D.draft-ietf-i2nsf-terminology]
Hares, S., et.al., "Interface to Network Security Functions
(I2NSF) Terminology", draft-ietf-i2nsf-terminology-03,
March, 2017
[I-D.draft-ietf-supa-generic-policy-info-model]
Strassner, J., Halpern, J., van der Meer, S., "Generic Policy
Information Model for Simplified Use of Policy Abstractions
(SUPA)", draft-ietf-supa-generic-policy-info-model-03,
May, 2017.
[Alshaer]
Al Shaer, E. and H. Hamed, "Modeling and management of firewall
policies", 2004.
[Bas12]
Basile, C., Cappadonia, A., and A. Lioy, "Network-Level Access
Control Policy Analysis and Transformation", 2012.
[Bas15]
Basile, C. and Lioy, A., "Analysis of application-layer filtering
policies with application to HTTP", IEEE/ACM Transactions on
Networking, Vol 23, Issue 1, February 2015.
[Cormen]
Cormen, T., "Introduction to Algorithms", 2009.
[Hohpe]
Hohpe, G. and Woolf, B., "Enterprise Integration Patterns",
Addison-Wesley, 2003, ISBN 0-32-120068-3
[Lunt]
van Lunteren, J. and T. Engbersen, "Fast and scalable packet
classification", IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communication,
vol 21, Issue 4, September 2003.
[Martin]
Martin, R.C., "Agile Software Development, Principles, Patterns,
and Practices", Prentice-Hall, 2002, ISBN: 0-13-597444-5
[OODMP]
http://www.oodesign.com/mediator-pattern.html
[OODOP]
http://www.oodesign.com/observer-pattern.html
[OODSRP]
http://www.oodesign.com/single-responsibility-principle.html
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Appendix A. Network Security Capability Policy Rule Definitions
Six exemplary Network Security Capability Policy Rules are
introduced in this Appendix to clarify how to create different kinds
of specific ECA policy rules to manage Network Security Capabilities.
Note that there is a common pattern that defines how these
ECAPolicyRules operate; this simplifies their implementation. All of
these six ECA Policy Rules are concrete classes.
In addition, none of these six subclasses define attributes. This
enables them to be viewed as simple object containers, and hence,
applicable to a wide variety of content. It also means that the
content of the function (e.g., how an entity is authenticated, what
specific traffic is inspected, or which particular signature is
applied) is defined solely by the set of events, conditions, and
actions that are contained by the particular subclass. This enables
the policy rule, with its aggregated set of events, conditions, and
actions, to be treated as a reusable object.
A.1. AuthenticationECAPolicyRule Class Definition
The purpose of an AuthenticationECAPolicyRule is to define an I2NSF
ECA Policy Rule that can verify whether an entity has an attribute
of a specific value. A high-level conceputal figure is shown below.
+----------------+
+----------------+ 1..n 1...n | |
| |/ \ HasAuthenticationMethod \| Authentication |
| Authentication + A ----------+-----------------+ Method |
| ECAPolicyRule |\ / ^ /| |
| | | +----------------+
+----------------+ |
|
+------------+-------------+
| AuthenticationRuleDetail |
+------------+-------------+
/ \ 0..n
|
| PolicyControlsAuthentication
|
/ \
A
\ / 0..n
+----------+--------------+
| ManagementECAPolicyRule |
+-------------------------+
Figure 10. Modeling Authentication Mechanisms
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This class does NOT define the authentication method used. This is
because this would effectively "enclose" this information within the
AuthenticationECAPolicyRule. This has two drawbacks. First, other
entities that need to use information from the Authentication
class(es) could not; they would have to associate with the
AuthenticationECAPolicyRule class, and those other classes would not
likely be interested in the AuthenticationECAPolicyRule. Second, the
evolution of new authentication methods should be independent of the
AuthenticationECAPolicyRule; this cannot happen if the
Authentication class(es) are embedded in the
AuthenticationECAPolicyRule.
This document only defines the AuthenticationECAPolicyRule; all other
classes, and the aggregations, are defined in an external model. For
completeness, descriptions of how the two aggregations are used are
described below.
Figure 10 defines an aggregation between an external class, which
defines one or more authentication methods, and an
AuthenticationECAPolicyRule. This decouples the implementation of
authentication mechanisms from how authentication mechanisms are
managed and used.
Since different AuthenticationECAPolicyRules can use different
authentication mechanisms in different ways, the aggregation is
realized as an association class. This enables the attributes and
methods of the association class (i.e., AuthenticationRuleDetail) to
be used to define how a given AuthenticationMethod is used by a
particular AuthenticationECAPolicyRule.
Similarly, the PolicyControlsAuthentication aggregation defines
Policy Rules to control the configuration of the
AuthenticationRuleDetail association class. This enables the entire
authentication process to be managed by ECA PolicyRules.
Note: a data model MAY choose to collapse this design into a more
efficient implementation. For example, a data model could define two
attributes for the AuthenticationECAPolicyRule class (e.g., called
authenticationMethodCurrent and authenticationMethodSupported), to
represent the HasAuthenticationMethod aggregation and its
association class. The former would be a string attribute that
defines the current authentication method used by this
AuthenticationECAPolicyRule, while the latter would define a set of
authentication methods, in the form of an authentication Capability,
which this AuthenticationECAPolicyRule can advertise.
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A.2. AuthorizationECAPolicyRuleClass Definition
The purpose of an AuthorizationECAPolicyRule is to define an I2NSF
ECA Policy Rule that can determine whether access to a resource
should be given and, if so, what permissions should be granted to
the entity that is accessing the resource.
This class does NOT define the authorization method(s) used. This
is because this would effectively "enclose" this information within
the AuthorizationECAPolicyRule. This has two drawbacks. First, other
entities that need to use information from the Authorization
class(es) could not; they would have to associate with the
AuthorizationECAPolicyRule class, and those other classes would not
likely be interested in the AuthorizationECAPolicyRule. Second, the
evolution of new authorization methods should be independent of the
AuthorizationECAPolicyRule; this cannot happen if the Authorization
class(es) are embedded in the AuthorizationECAPolicyRule. Hence,
this document recommends the following design:
+---------------+
+----------------+ 1..n 1...n | |
| |/ \ HasAuthorizationMethod \| Authorization |
| Authorization + A ----------+----------------+ Method |
| ECAPolicyRule |\ / ^ /| |
| | | +---------------+
+----------------+ |
|
+------------+------------+
| AuthorizationRuleDetail |
+------------+------------+
/ \ 0..n
|
| PolicyControlsAuthorization
|
/ \
A
\ / 0..n
+----------+--------------+
| ManagementECAPolicyRule |
+-------------------------+
Figure 11. Modeling Authorization Mechanisms
This document only defines the AuthorizationECAPolicyRule; all other
classes, and the aggregations, are defined in an external model. For
completeness, descriptions of how the two aggregations are used are
described below.
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Figure 11 defines an aggregation between the
AuthorizationECAPolicyRule and an external class that defines one or
more authorization methods. This decouples the implementation of
authorization mechanisms from how authorization mechanisms are
managed and used.
Since different AuthorizationECAPolicyRules can use different
authorization mechanisms in different ways, the aggregation is
realized as an association class. This enables the attributes and
methods of the association class (i.e., AuthorizationRuleDetail)
to be used to define how a given AuthorizationMethod is used by a
particular AuthorizationECAPolicyRule.
Similarly, the PolicyControlsAuthorization aggregation defines
Policy Rules to control the configuration of the
AuthorizationRuleDetail association class. This enables the entire
authorization process to be managed by ECA PolicyRules.
Note: a data model MAY choose to collapse this design into a more
efficient implementation. For example, a data model could define
two attributes for the AuthorizationECAPolicyRule class, called
(for example) authorizationMethodCurrent and
authorizationMethodSupported, to represent the
HasAuthorizationMethod aggregation and its association class. The
former is a string attribute that defines the current authorization
method used by this AuthorizationECAPolicyRule, while the latter
defines a set of authorization methods, in the form of an
authorization Capability, which this AuthorizationECAPolicyRule
can advertise.
A.3. AccountingECAPolicyRuleClass Definition
The purpose of an AccountingECAPolicyRule is to define an I2NSF
ECA Policy Rule that can determine which information to collect,
and how to collect that information, from which set of resources
for the purpose of trend analysis, auditing, billing, or cost
allocation [RFC2975] [RFC3539].
This class does NOT define the accounting method(s) used. This is
because this would effectively "enclose" this information within
the AccountingECAPolicyRule. This has two drawbacks. First, other
entities that need to use information from the Accounting class(es)
could not; they would have to associate with the
AccountingECAPolicyRule class, and those other classes would not
likely be interested in the AccountingECAPolicyRule. Second, the
evolution of new accounting methods should be independent of the
AccountingECAPolicyRule; this cannot happen if the Accounting
class(es) are embedded in the AccountingECAPolicyRule. Hence, this
document recommends the following design:
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+-------------+
+----------------+ 1..n 1...n | |
| |/ \ HasAccountingMethod \| Accounting |
| Accounting + A ----------+--------------+ Method |
| ECAPolicyRule |\ / ^ /| |
| | | +-------------+
+----------------+ |
|
+----------+-----------+
| AccountingRuleDetail |
+----------+-----------+
/ \ 0..n
|
| PolicyControlsAccounting
|
/ \
A
\ / 0..n
+----------+--------------+
| ManagementECAPolicyRule |
+-------------------------+
Figure 12. Modeling Accounting Mechanisms
This document only defines the AccountingECAPolicyRule; all other
classes, and the aggregations, are defined in an external model.
For completeness, descriptions of how the two aggregations are used
are described below.
Figure 12 defines an aggregation between the AccountingECAPolicyRule
and an external class that defines one or more accounting methods.
This decouples the implementation of accounting mechanisms from how
accounting mechanisms are managed and used.
Since different AccountingECAPolicyRules can use different
accounting mechanisms in different ways, the aggregation is realized
as an association class. This enables the attributes and methods of
the association class (i.e., AccountingRuleDetail) to be used to
define how a given AccountingMethod is used by a particular
AccountingECAPolicyRule.
Similarly, the PolicyControlsAccounting aggregation defines Policy
Rules to control the configuration of the AccountingRuleDetail
association class. This enables the entire accounting process to be
managed by ECA PolicyRules.
Note: a data model MAY choose to collapse this design into a more
efficient implementation. For example, a data model could define
two attributes for the AccountingECAPolicyRule class, called
(for example) accountingMethodCurrent and accountingMethodSupported,
to represent the HasAccountingMethod aggregation and its association
class.
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The former is a string attribute that defines the current accounting
method used by this AccountingECAPolicyRule, while the latter
defines a set of accounting methods, in the form of an accounting
Capability, which this AccountingECAPolicyRule can advertise.
A.4. TrafficInspectionECAPolicyRuleClass Definition
The purpose of a TrafficInspectionECAPolicyRule is to define an I2NSF
ECA Policy Rule that, based on a given context, can determine which
traffic to examine on which devices, which information to collect
from those devices, and how to collect that information.
This class does NOT define the traffic inspection method(s) used.
This is because this would effectively "enclose" this information
within the TrafficInspectionECAPolicyRule. This has two drawbacks.
First, other entities that need to use information from the
TrafficInspection class(es) could not; they would have to associate
with the TrafficInspectionECAPolicyRule class, and those other
classes would not likely be interested in the
TrafficInspectionECAPolicyRule. Second, the evolution of new traffic
inspection methods should be independent of the
TrafficInspectionECAPolicyRule; this cannot happen if the
TrafficInspection class(es) are embedded in the
TrafficInspectionECAPolicyRule. Hence, this document recommends the
following design:
+------------------+
+-------------------+1..n 1..n| |
| |/ \ HasTrafficInspection \| Traffic |
| TrafficInspection + A ----------+-------------+ InspectionMethod |
| ECAPolicyRule |\ / ^ / | |
| | | +------------------+
+-------------------+ |
|
+------------+------------+
| TrafficInspectionDetail |
+------------+------------+
/ \ 0..n
|
| PolicyControlsTrafficInspection
|
/ \
A
\ / 0..n
+----------+--------------+
| ManagementECAPolicyRule |
+-------------------------+
Figure 13. Modeling Traffic Inspection Mechanisms
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This document only defines the TrafficInspectionECAPolicyRule; all
other classes, and the aggregations, are defined in an external
model. For completeness, descriptions of how the two aggregations
are used are described below.
Figure 13 defines an aggregation between the
TrafficInspectionECAPolicyRule and an external class that defines
one or more traffic inspection mechanisms. This decouples the
implementation of traffic inspection mechanisms from how traffic
inspection mechanisms are managed and used.
Since different TrafficInspectionECAPolicyRules can use different
traffic inspection mechanisms in different ways, the aggregation is
realized as an association class. This enables the attributes and
methods of the association class (i.e., TrafficInspectionDetail) to
be used to define how a given TrafficInspectionMethod is used by a
particular TrafficInspectionECAPolicyRule.
Similarly, the PolicyControlsTrafficInspection aggregation defines
Policy Rules to control the configuration of the
TrafficInspectionDetail association class. This enables the entire
traffic inspection process to be managed by ECA PolicyRules.
Note: a data model MAY choose to collapse this design into a more
efficient implementation. For example, a data model could define
two attributes for the TrafficInspectionECAPolicyRule class, called
(for example) trafficInspectionMethodCurrent and
trafficInspectionMethodSupported, to represent the
HasTrafficInspectionMethod aggregation and its association class.
The former is a string attribute that defines the current traffic
inspection method used by this TrafficInspectionECAPolicyRule,
while the latter defines a set of traffic inspection methods, in
the form of a traffic inspection Capability, which this
TrafficInspectionECAPolicyRule can advertise.
A.5. ApplyProfileECAPolicyRuleClass Definition
The purpose of an ApplyProfileECAPolicyRule is to define an I2NSF
ECA Policy Rule that, based on a given context, can apply a
particular profile to specific traffic. The profile defines the
security Capabilities for content security control and/or attack
mitigation control; these will be described in sections 4.4 and
4.5, respectively.
This class does NOT define the set of Profiles used. This is
because this would effectively "enclose" this information within
the ApplyProfileECAPolicyRule. This has two drawbacks. First, other
entities that need to use information from the Profile class(es)
could not; they would have to associate with the
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ApplyProfileECAPolicyRule class, and those other classes would not
likely be interested in the ApplyProfileECAPolicyRule. Second, the
evolution of new Profile classes should be independent of the
ApplyProfileECAPolicyRule; this cannot happen if the Profile
class(es) are embedded in the ApplyProfileECAPolicyRule. Hence,
this document recommends the following design:
+-------------+
+-------------------+ 1..n 1..n | |
| |/ \ ProfileApplied \| |
| ApplyProfile + A -----------+-------------+ Profile |
| ECAPolicyRule |\ / ^ /| |
| | | +-------------+
+-------------------+ |
|
+------------+---------+
| ProfileAppliedDetail |
+------------+---------+
/ \ 0..n
|
|
PolicyControlsProfileApplication |
|
/ \
A
\ / 0..n
+----------+--------------+
| ManagementECAPolicyRule |
+-------------------------+
Figure 14. Modeling Profile ApplicationMechanisms
This document only defines the ApplyProfileECAPolicyRule; all other
classes, and the aggregations, are defined in an external model.
For completeness, descriptions of how the two aggregations are used
are described below.
Figure 14 defines an aggregation between the
ApplyProfileECAPolicyRule and an external Profile class. This
decouples the implementation of Profiles from how Profiles are used.
Since different ApplyProfileECAPolicyRules can use different
Profiles in different ways, the aggregation is realized as an
association class. This enables the attributes and methods of the
association class (i.e., ProfileAppliedDetail) to be used to define
how a given Profile is used by a particular
ApplyProfileECAPolicyRule.
Similarly, the PolicyControlsProfileApplication aggregation defines
policies to control the configuration of the ProfileAppliedDetail
association class. This enables the application of Profiles to be
managed and used by ECA PolicyRules.
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Note: a data model MAY choose to collapse this design into a more
efficient implementation. For example, a data model could define two
attributes for the ApplyProfileECAPolicyRuleclass, called (for
example) profileAppliedCurrent and profileAppliedSupported, to
represent the ProfileApplied aggregation and its association class.
The former is a string attribute that defines the current Profile
used by this ApplyProfileECAPolicyRule, while the latter defines a
set of Profiles, in the form of a Profile Capability, which this
ApplyProfileECAPolicyRule can advertise.
A.6. ApplySignatureECAPolicyRuleClass Definition
The purpose of an ApplySignatureECAPolicyRule is to define an I2NSF
ECA Policy Rule that, based on a given context, can determine which
Signature object (e.g., an anti-virus file, or aURL filtering file,
or a script) to apply to which traffic. The Signature object defines
the security Capabilities for content security control and/or attack
mitigation control; these will be described in sections 4.4 and 4.5,
respectively.
This class does NOT define the set of Signature objects used. This
is because this would effectively "enclose" this information within
the ApplySignatureECAPolicyRule. This has two drawbacks. First,
other entities that need to use information from the Signature
object class(es) could not; they would have to associate with the
ApplySignatureECAPolicyRule class, and those other classes would not
likely be interested in the ApplySignatureECAPolicyRule. Second, the
evolution of new Signature object classes should be independent of
the ApplySignatureECAPolicyRule; this cannot happen if the Signature
object class(es) are embedded in the ApplySignatureECAPolicyRule.
Hence, this document recommends the following design:
This document only defines the ApplySignatureECAPolicyRule; all
other classes, and the aggregations, are defined in an external
model. For completeness, descriptions of how the two aggregations
are used are described below.
Figure 15 defines an aggregation between the
ApplySignatureECAPolicyRule and an external Signature object class.
This decouples the implementation of signature objects from how
Signature objects are used.
Since different ApplySignatureECAPolicyRules can use different
Signature objects in different ways, the aggregation is realized as
an association class. This enables the attributes and methods of the
association class (i.e., SignatureAppliedDetail) to be used to
define how a given Signature object is used by a particular
ApplySignatureECAPolicyRule.
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+-------------+
+---------------+ 1..n 1..n | |
| |/ \ SignatureApplied \| |
| ApplySignature+ A ----------+--------------+ Signature |
| ECAPolicyRule |\ / ^ /| |
| | | +-------------+
+---------------+ |
|
+------------+-----------+
| SignatureAppliedDetail |
+------------+-----------+
/ \ 0..n
|
| PolicyControlsSignatureApplication
|
/ \
A
\ / 0..n
+----------+--------------+
| ManagementECAPolicyRule |
+-------------------------+
Figure 15. Modeling Sginature Application Mechanisms
Similarly, the PolicyControlsSignatureApplication aggregation
defines policies to control the configuration of the
SignatureAppliedDetail association class. This enables the
application of the Signature object to be managed by policy.
Note: a data model MAY choose to collapse this design into a more
efficient implementation. For example, a data model could define
two attributes for the ApplySignatureECAPolicyRule class, called
(for example) signature signatureAppliedCurrent and
signatureAppliedSupported, to represent the SignatureApplied
aggregation and its association class. The former is a string
attribute that defines the current Signature object used by this
ApplySignatureECAPolicyRule, while the latter defines a set of
Signature objects, in the form of a Signature Capability, which
this ApplySignatureECAPolicyRule can advertise.
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Appendix B. Network Security Event Class Definitions
This Appendix defines a preliminary set of Network Security Event
classes, along with their attributes.
B.1. UserSecurityEvent Class Description
The purpose of this class is to represent Events that are initiated
by a user, such as logon and logoff Events. Information in this
Event may be used as part of a test to determine if the Condition
clause in this ECA Policy Rule should be evaluated or not. Examples
include user identification data and the type of connection used by
the user.
The UserSecurityEvent class defines the following attributes.
B.1.1. The usrSecEventContent Attribute
This is a mandatory string that contains the content of the
UserSecurityEvent. The format of the content is specified in the
usrSecEventFormat class attribute, and the type of Event is defined
in the usrSecEventType class attribute. An example of the
usrSecEventContent attribute is the string "hrAdmin", with the
usrSecEventFormat set to 1 (GUID) and the usrSecEventType attribute
set to 5 (new logon).
B.1.2. The usrSecEventFormat Attribute
This is a mandatory non-negative enumerated integer, which is used
to specify the data type of the usrSecEventContent attribute. The
content is specified in the usrSecEventContent class attribute, and
the type of Event is defined in the usrSecEventType class attribute.
An example of the usrSecEventContent attribute is the string
"hrAdmin", with the usrSecEventFormat attribute set to 1 (GUID) and
the usrSecEventType attribute set to 5 (new logon). Values include:
0: unknown
1: GUID (Generic Unique IDentifier)
2: UUID (Universal Unique IDentifier)
3: URI (Uniform Resource Identifier)
4: FQDN (Fully Qualified Domain Name)
5: FQPN (Fully Qualified Path Name)
B.1.3. The usrSecEventType Attribute
This is a mandatory non-negative enumerated integer, which is used
to specify the type of Event that involves this user. The content
and format are specified in the usrSecEventContent and
usrSecEventFormat class attributes, respectively.
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An example of the usrSecEventContent attribute is the string
"hrAdmin", with the usrSecEventFormat attribute set to 1 (GUID), and
the usrSecEventType attribute set to 5 (new logon). Values include:
0: unknown
1: new user created
2: new user group created
3: user deleted
4: user group deleted
5: user logon
6: user logoff
7: user access request
8: user access granted
9: user access violation
B.2. DeviceSecurityEvent Class Description
The purpose of a DeviceSecurityEvent is to represent Events that
provide information from the Device that are important to I2NSF
Security. Information in this Event may be used as part of a test
to determine if the Condition clause in this ECA Policy Rule should
be evaluated or not. Examples include alarms and various device
statistics (e.g., a type of threshold that was exceeded), which may
signal the need for further action.
The DeviceSecurityEvent class defines the following attributes.
B.2.1. The devSecEventContent Attribute
This is a mandatory string that contains the content of the
DeviceSecurityEvent. The format of the content is specified in the
devSecEventFormat class attribute, and the type of Event is defined
in the devSecEventType class attribute. An example of the
devSecEventContent attribute is "alarm", with the devSecEventFormat
attribute set to 1 (GUID), the devSecEventType attribute set to
5 (new logon).
B.2.2. The devSecEventFormat Attribute
This is a mandatory non-negative enumerated integer, which is used
to specify the data type of the devSecEventContent attribute.
Values include:
0: unknown
1: GUID (Generic Unique IDentifier)
2: UUID (Universal Unique IDentifier)
3: URI (Uniform Resource Identifier)
4: FQDN (Fully Qualified Domain Name)
5: FQPN (Fully Qualified Path Name)
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B.2.3. The devSecEventType Attribute
This is a mandatory non-negative enumerated integer, which is used
to specify the type of Event that was generated by this device.
Values include:
0: unknown
1: communications alarm
2: quality of service alarm
3: processing error alarm
4: equipment error alarm
5: environmental error alarm
Values 1-5 are defined in X.733. Additional types of errors may also
be defined.
B.2.4. The devSecEventTypeInfo[0..n] Attribute
This is an optional array of strings, which is used to provide
additional information describing the specifics of the Event
generated by this Device. For example, this attribute could contain
probable cause information in the first array, trend information in
the second array, proposed repair actions in the third array, and
additional information in the fourth array.
B.2.5. The devSecEventTypeSeverity Attribute
This is a mandatory non-negative enumerated integer, which is used
to specify the perceived severity of the Event generated by this
Device. Values (which are defined in X.733) include:
0: unknown
1: cleared
2: indeterminate
3: critical
4: major
5: minor
6: warning
B.3. SystemSecurityEvent Class Description
The purpose of a SystemSecurityEvent is to represent Events that
are detected by the management system, instead of Events that are
generated by a user or a device. Information in this Event may be
used as part of a test to determine if the Condition clause in
this ECA Policy Rule should be evaluated or not. Examples include
an event issued by an analytics system that warns against a
particular pattern of unknown user accesses, or an Event issued by
a management system that represents a set of correlated and/or
filtered Events.
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The SystemSecurityEvent class defines the following attributes.
B.3.1. The sysSecEventContent Attribute
This is a mandatory string that contains the content of the
SystemSecurityEvent. The format of the content is specified in the
sysSecEventFormat class attribute, and the type of Event is defined
in the sysSecEventType class attribute. An example of the
sysSecEventContent attribute is the string "sysadmin3", with the
sysSecEventFormat attribute set to 1 (GUID), and the sysSecEventType
attribute set to 2 (audit log cleared).
B.3.2. The sysSecEventFormat Attribute
This is a mandatory non-negative enumerated integer, which is used
to specify the data type of the sysSecEventContent attribute.
Values include:
0: unknown
1: GUID (Generic Unique IDentifier)
2: UUID (Universal Unique IDentifier)
3: URI (Uniform Resource Identifier)
4: FQDN (Fully Qualified Domain Name)
5: FQPN (Fully Qualified Path Name)
B.3.3. The sysSecEventType Attribute
This is a mandatory non-negative enumerated integer, which is used
to specify the type of Event that involves this device.
Values include:
0: unknown
1: audit log written to
2: audit log cleared
3: policy created
4: policy edited
5: policy deleted
6: policy executed
B.4. TimeSecurityEvent Class Description
The purpose of a TimeSecurityEvent is to represent Events that are
temporal in nature (e.g., the start or end of a period of time).
Time events signify an individual occurrence, or a time period, in
which a significant event happened. Information in this Event may be
used as part of a test to determine if the Condition clause in this
ECA Policy Rule should be evaluated or not. Examples include issuing
an Event at a specific time to indicate that a particular resource
should not be accessed, or that different authentication and
authorization mechanisms should now be used (e.g., because it is now
past regular business hours).
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The TimeSecurityEvent class defines the following attributes.
B.4.1. The timeSecEventPeriodBegin Attribute
This is a mandatory DateTime attribute, and represents the beginning
of a time period. It has a value that has a date and/or a time
component (as in the Java or Python libraries).
B.4.2. The timeSecEventPeriodEnd Attribute
This is a mandatory DateTime attribute, and represents the end of a
time period. It has a value that has a date and/or a time component
(as in the Java or Python libraries). If this is a single Event
occurence, and not a time period when the Event can occur, then the
timeSecEventPeriodEnd attribute may be ignored.
B.4.3. The timeSecEventTimeZone Attribute
This is a mandatory string attribute, and defines the time zone that
this Event occurred in using the format specified in ISO8601.
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Appendix C. Network Security Condition Class Definitions
This Appendix defines a preliminary set of Network Security Condition
classes, along with their attributes.
C.1. PacketSecurityCondition
The purpose of this Class is to represent packet header information
that can be used as part of a test to determine if the set of Policy
Actions in this ECA Policy Rule should be executed or not. This class
is abstract, and serves as the superclass of more detailed conditions
that act on different types of packet formats. Its subclasses are
shown in Figure 16, and are defined in the following sections.
+-------------------------+
| PacketSecurityCondition |
+------------+------------+
/ \
|
|
+---------+----------+---+-----+----------+
| | | | |
| | | | |
+--------+-------+ | +--------+-------+ | +--------+-------+
| PacketSecurity | | | PacketSecurity | | | PacketSecurity |
| MACCondition | | | IPv4Condition | | | IPv6Condition |
+----------------+ | +----------------+ | +----------------+
| |
+--------+-------+ +--------+-------+
| TCPCondition | | UDPCondition |
+----------------+ +----------------+
Figure 16. Network Security Info Sub-Model PacketSecurityCondition
Class Extensions
C.1.1. PacketSecurityMACCondition
The purpose of this Class is to represent packet MAC packet header
information that can be used as part of a test to determine if the
set of Policy Actions in this ECA Policy Rule should be executed or
not. This class is concrete, and defines the following attributes.
C.1.1.1. The pktSecCondMACDest Attribute
This is a mandatory string attribute, and defines the MAC
destination address (6 octets long).
C.1.1.2. The pktSecCondMACSrc Attribute
This is a mandatory string attribute, and defines the MAC source
address (6 octets long).
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C.1.1.3. The pktSecCondMAC8021Q Attribute
This is an optional string attribute, and defines the 802.1Q tag
value (2 octets long). This defines VLAN membership and 802.1p
priority values.
C.1.1.4. The pktSecCondMACEtherType Attribute
This is a mandatory string attribute, and defines the EtherType
field (2 octets long). Values up to and including 1500 indicate the
size of the payload in octets; values of 1536 and above define
which protocol is encapsulated in the payload of the frame.
C.1.1.5. The pktSecCondMACTCI Attribute
This is an optional string attribute, and defines the Tag Control
Information. This consists of a 3 bit user priority field, a drop
eligible indicator (1 bit), and a VLAN identifier (12 bits).
C.1.2. PacketSecurityIPv4Condition
The purpose of this Class is to represent packet IPv4 packet header
information that can be used as part of a test to determine if the
set of Policy Actions in this ECA Policy Rule should be executed or
not. This class is concrete, and defines the following attributes.
C.1.2.1. The pktSecCondIPv4SrcAddr Attribute
This is a mandatory string attribute, and defines the IPv4 Source
Address (32 bits).
C.1.2.2. The pktSecCondIPv4DestAddr Attribute
This is a mandatory string attribute, and defines the IPv4
Destination Address (32 bits).
C.1.2.3. The pktSecCondIPv4ProtocolUsed Attribute
This is a mandatory string attribute, and defines the protocol used
in the data portion of the IP datagram (8 bits).
C.1.2.4. The pktSecCondIPv4DSCP Attribute
This is a mandatory string attribute, and defines the Differentiated
Services Code Point field (6 bits).
C.1.2.5. The pktSecCondIPv4ECN Attribute
This is an optional string attribute, and defines the Explicit
Congestion Notification field (2 bits).
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C.1.2.6. The pktSecCondIPv4TotalLength Attribute
This is a mandatory string attribute, and defines the total length
of the packet (including header and data) in bytes (16 bits).
C.1.2.7. The pktSecCondIPv4TTL Attribute
This is a mandatory string attribute, and defines the Time To Live
in seconds (8 bits).
C.1.3. PacketSecurityIPv6Condition
The purpose of this Class is to represent packet IPv6 packet header
information that can be used as part of a test to determine if the
set of Policy Actions in this ECA Policy Rule should be executed or
not. This class is concrete, and defines the following attributes.
C.1.3.1. The pktSecCondIPv6SrcAddr Attribute
This is a mandatory string attribute, and defines the IPv6 Source
Address (128 bits).
C.1.3.2. The pktSecCondIPv6DestAddr Attribute
This is a mandatory string attribute, and defines the IPv6
Destination Address (128 bits).
C.1.3.3. The pktSecCondIPv6DSCP Attribute
This is a mandatory string attribute, and defines the Differentiated
Services Code Point field (6 bits). It consists of the six most
significant bits of the Traffic Class field in the IPv6 header.
C.1.3.4. The pktSecCondIPv6ECN Attribute
This is a mandatory string attribute, and defines the Explicit
Congestion Notification field (2 bits). It consists of the two least
significant bits of the Traffic Class field in the IPv6 header.
C.1.3.5. The pktSecCondIPv6FlowLabel Attribute
This is a mandatory string attribute, and defines an IPv6 flow
label. This, in combination with the Source and Destination Address
fields, enables efficient IPv6 flow classification by using only the
IPv6 main header fields (20 bits).
C.1.3.6. The pktSecCondIPv6PayloadLength Attribute
This is a mandatory string attribute, and defines the total length
of the packet (including the fixed and any extension headers, and
data) in bytes (16 bits).
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C.1.3.7. The pktSecCondIPv6NextHeader Attribute
This is a mandatory string attribute, and defines the type of the
next header (e.g., which extension header to use) (8 bits).
C.1.3.8. The pktSecCondIPv6HopLimit Attribute
This is a mandatory string attribute, and defines the maximum
number of hops that this packet can traverse (8 bits).
C.1.4. PacketSecurityTCPCondition
The purpose of this Class is to represent packet TCP packet header
information that can be used as part of a test to determine if the
set of Policy Actions in this ECA Policy Rule should be executed or
not. This class is concrete, and defines the following attributes.
C.1.4.1. The pktSecCondTPCSrcPort Attribute
This is a mandatory string attribute, and defines the Source Port
number (16 bits).
C.1.4.2. The pktSecCondTPCDestPort Attribute
This is a mandatory string attribute, and defines the Destination
Port number (16 bits).
C.1.4.3. The pktSecCondTCPSeqNum Attribute
This is a mandatory string attribute, and defines the sequence
number (32 bits).
C.1.4.4. The pktSecCondTCPFlags Attribute
This is a mandatory string attribute, and defines the nine Control
bit flags (9 bits).
C.1.5. PacketSecurityUDPCondition
The purpose of this Class is to represent packet UDP packet header
information that can be used as part of a test to determine if the
set of Policy Actions in this ECA Policy Rule should be executed or
not. This class is concrete, and defines the following attributes.
C.1.5.1.1. The pktSecCondUDPSrcPort Attribute
This is a mandatory string attribute, and defines the UDP Source
Port number (16 bits).
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C.1.5.1.2. The pktSecCondUDPDestPort Attribute
This is a mandatory string attribute, and defines the UDP
Destination Port number (16 bits).
C.1.5.1.3. The pktSecCondUDPLength Attribute
This is a mandatory string attribute, and defines the length in
bytes of the UDP header and data (16 bits).
C.2. PacketPayloadSecurityCondition
The purpose of this Class is to represent packet payload data that
can be used as part of a test to determine if the set of Policy
Actions in this ECA Policy Rule should be executed or not. Examples
include a specific set of bytes in the packet payload.
C.3. TargetSecurityCondition
The purpose of this Class is to represent information about
different targets of this policy (i.e., entities to which this
Policy Rule should be applied), which can be used as part of a
test to determine if the set of Policy Actions in this ECA Policy
Rule should be executed or not. Examples include whether the
targeted entities are playing the same role, or whether each
device is administered by the same set of users, groups, or roles.
This Class has several important subclasses, including:
a. ServiceSecurityContextCondition is the superclass for all
information that can be used in an ECA Policy Rule that
specifies data about the type of service to be analyzed
(e.g., the protocol type and port number)
b. ApplicationSecurityContextCondition is the superclass for all
information that can be used in a ECA Policy Rule that
specifies data that identifies a particular application
(including metadata, such as risk level)
c. DeviceSecurityContextCondition is the superclass for all
information that can be used in a ECA Policy Rule that
specifies data about a device type and/or device OS that is
being used
C.4. UserSecurityCondition
The purpose of this Class is to represent data about the user or
group referenced in this ECA Policy Rule that can be used as part of
a test to determine if the set of Policy Actions in this ECA Policy
Rule should be evaluated or not. Examples include the user or group
id used, the type of connection used, whether a given user or group
is playing a particular role, or whether a given user or group has
failed to login a particular number of times.
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C.5. SecurityContextCondition
The purpose of this Class is to represent security conditions that
are part of a specific context, which can be used as part of a test
to determine if the set of Policy Actions in this ECA Policy Rule
should be evaluated or not. Examples include testing to determine
if a particular pattern of security-related data have occurred, or
if the current session state matches the expected session state.
C.6. GenericContextSecurityCondition
The purpose of this Class is to represent generic contextual
information in which this ECA Policy Rule is being executed, which
can be used as part of a test to determine if the set of Policy
Actions in this ECA Policy Rule should be evaluated or not.
Examples include geographic location and temporal information.
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Appendix D. Network Security Action Class Definitions
This Appendix defines a preliminary set of Network Security Action
classes, along with their attributes.
D.1. IngressAction
The purpose of this Class is to represent actions performed on
packets that enter an NSF. Examples include pass, dropp, or
mirror traffic.
D.2. EgressAction
The purpose of this Class is to represent actions performed on
packets that exit an NSF. Examples include pass, drop, or mirror
traffic, signal, and encapsulate.
D.3. ApplyProfileAction
The purpose of this Class is to define the application of a profile
to packets to perform content security and/or attack mitigation
control.
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Appendix E. Geometric Model
The geometric model defined in [Bas12] is summarized here. Note that
our work has extended the work of [Bas12] to model ECA Policy Rules,
instead of just condition-action Policy Rules. However, the
geometric model in this Appendix is simplified in this version of
this I-D, and is used to define just the CA part of the ECA model.
All the actions available to the security function are well known
and organized in an action set A.
For filtering controls, the enforceable actions are either Allow or
Deny, thus A={Allow,Deny}. For channel protection controls, they may
be informally written as "enforce confidentiality", "enforce data
authentication and integrity", and "enforce confidentiality and data
authentication and integrity". However, these actions need to be
instantiated to the technology used. For example, AH-transport mode
and ESP-transport mode (and combinations thereof) are a more precise
definition of channel protection actions.
Conditions are typed predicates concerning a given selector. A
selector describes the values that a protocol field may take. For
example, the IP source selector is the set of all possible IP
addresses, and it may also refer to the part of the packet where the
values come from (e.g., the IP source selector refers to the IP
source field in the IP header). Geometrically, a condition is the
subset of its selector for which it evaluates to true. A condition
on a given selector matches a packet if the value of the field
referred to by the selector belongs to the condition. For instance,
in Figure 17 the conditions are s1 <= S1 (read as s1 subset of or
equal to S1) and s2 <= S2 (s2 subset of or equal to S2), both s1 and
s2 match the packet x1, while only s2 matches x2.
To consider conditions in different selectors, the decision space is
extended using the Cartesian product because distinct selectors
refer to different fields, possibly from different protocol headers.
Hence, given a policy-enabled element that allows the definition of
conditions on the selectors S1, S2,..., Sm (where m is the number
of Selectors available at the security control we want to model),
its selection space is:
S=S1 X S2 X ... X Sm
To consider conditions in different selectors, the decision space is
extended using the Cartesian product because distinct selectors
refer to different fields, possibly from different protocol headers.
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S2 ^ Destination port
|
| x2
+......o
| .
| .
--+.............+------------------------------------+
| | . | |
s | . | |
e | . | (rectangle) |
g | . | condition clause (c) |
m | . | here the action a is applied |
e | . | |
n | . | x1=point=packet |
t +.............|.............o |
| | . | . |
--+.............+------------------------------------+
| . . . .
| . . . .
+------------+------+-------------+----------------------+------>
| |---- segment = condition in S1 -----| S1
+ IP source
Figure 17: Geometric representation of a rule r=(c,a) that
matches x1, but does not match x2.
Accordingly, the condition clause c is a subset of S:
c = s1 X s2 X ... X sm <= S1 X S2 X ... X Sm = S
S represents the totality of the packets that are individually
selectable by the security control to model when we use it to
enforce a policy. Unfortunately, not all its subsets are valid
condition clauses: only hyper-rectangles, or the union of
hyper-rectangles (as they are Cartesian product of conditions),
are valid. This is an intrinsic constraint of the policy
language, as it specifies rules by defining a condition for each
selector. Languages that allow specification of conditions as
relations over more fields are modeled by the geometric model as
more complex geometric shapes determined by the equations. However,
the algorithms to compute intersections are much more sophisticated
than intersection hyper-rectangles. Figure 17 graphically represents
a condition clause c in a two-dimensional selection space.
In the geometric model, a rule is expressed as r=(c,a), where c <= S
(the condition clause is a subset of the selection space), and the
action a belongs to A. Rule condition clauses match a packet (rules
match a packet), if all the conditions forming the clauses match the
packet. In Figure 17, the rule with condition clause c matches the
packet x1 but not x2.
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The rule set R is composed of n rules ri=(ci,ai).
The decision criteria for the action to apply when a packet matches
two or more rules is abstracted by means of the resolution strategy
RS: Pow(R) -> A
where Pow(R) is the power set of rules in R.
Formally, given a set of rules, the resolution strategy maps all the
possible subsets of rules to an action a in A. When no rule matches a
packet, the security controls may select the default action d in A,
if they support one.
Resolution strategies may use, besides intrinsic rule data (i.e.,
condition clause and action clause), also external data associated to
each rule, such as priority, identity of the creator, and creation
time. Formally, every rule ri is associated by means of the
function e(.):
e(ri) = (ri,f1(ri),f2(ri),...)
where E={fj:R -> Xj} (j=1,2,...) is the set that includes all
functions that map rules to external attributes in Xj. However,
E, e, and all the Xj are determined by the resolution strategy used.
A policy is thus a function p: S -> A that connects each point of
the selection space to an action taken from the action set A
according to the rules in R. By also assuming RS(0)=d (where 0 is
the empty-set) and RS(ri)=ai, the policy p can be described as:
p(x)=RS(match{R(x)}).
Therefore, in the geometric model, a policy is completely defined by
the 4-tuple (R,RS,E,d): the rule set R, the resolution function RS,
the set E of mappings to the external attributes, and the default
action d.
Note that, the geometric model also supports ECA paradigms by simply
modeling events like an additional selector.
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Authors' Addresses
Liang Xia (Frank)
Huawei
101 Software Avenue, Yuhuatai District
Nanjing, Jiangsu 210012
China
Email: Frank.xialiang@huawei.com
John Strassner
Huawei
Email: John.sc.Strassner@huawei.com
Cataldo Basile
Politecnico di Torino
Corso Duca degli Abruzzi, 34
Torino, 10129
Italy
Email: cataldo.basile@polito.it
Diego R. Lopez
Telefonica I+D
Zurbaran, 12
Madrid, 28010
Spain
Phone: +34 913 129 041
Email: diego.r.lopez@telefonica.com
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