Attack patterns: A new forensic and design tool

Abstract

A pattern is an encapsulated solution to a problem in a given context that can be used to guide system design and evaluation. Analysis, design and architectural patterns are established formalisms for designing high quality software. Security patterns guide the secure design of systems by providing generic solutions that prevent a variety of attacks. This paper presents an attack pattern, a new type of pattern that is specified from the point of view of an attacker. The pattern describes how an attack is performed, enumerates the security patterns that can be applied to defeat the attack, and describes how to trace the attack once it has occurred. An example involving DoS attacks on VoIP networks is used to demonstrate the value of the formalism to security designers and forensic investigators. © 2007 International Federation for Information Processing.