Using contextual security policies for threat response

Abstract

With the apparition of accurate security monitoring tools, the gathered alerts are requiring operators to take action to prevent damage from attackers. Intrusion prevention currently provides isolated response mechanisms that may take a local action upon an attack. While this approach has been taken to enhance the security of particular network access control points, it does not constitute a comprehensive approach to threat response. In this paper, we will examine a new mechanism for adapting the security policy of an information system according to the threat it receives, and hence its behaviour and the services it offers. This mechanism takes into account not only threats, but also legal constraints and other objectives of the organization operating this information system, taking into account multiple security objectives and providing several trade-off options between security objectives, performance objectives, and other operational constraints. The proposed mechanism bridges the gap between preventive security technologies and intrusion detection, and builds upon existing technologies to facilitate formalization on one hand, and deployment on the other hand. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2006.