The present disclosure generally relates to malicious cybersecurity attacks and, in particular, to attributing such attacks to particular perpetrators.
Cybersecurity attacks continue to increase in number and sophistication. A relatively common attack that takes place in many organizations is what is known as an insider attack. During an insider attack, an insider (e.g., an employee or contractor of an organization) performs a malicious activity such as removing information from the organization for personal, financial, or other form of gain or deliberately damaging the organization. Insiders may gain access to systems and information and attempt to conceal that they were the ones who accessed the systems and information by using the devices and/or credentials of other users. Various techniques attempt to prevent, stop, or mitigate insider attacks. However, existing techniques generally provide little to no explanation of the nature and the execution mode of the attacks and do not adequately assist in the identification of the perpetrators behind such attacks.
Various implementations disclosed herein include devices, systems, and methods that facilitate the identification of perpetrators behind insider attacks. Some implementations provide a forensic analysis tool configured to perform in-depth investigations of intrusion incidents with the goal of exposing evidence that leads to attack attributions. This may involve, at a processor, detecting an intrusion at an electronic device accessing non-public information or systems of an organization. An intrusion is an unauthorized access of an electronic device. The method may involve identifying biometric data associated with the electronic device during the intrusion. Such biometric data may include one or more behavioral signals. The method may involve identifying a subset of organization insiders based on the biometric data and providing a report based on the subset of organization insiders, for example, attributing the intrusion to one or more potential perpetrators.
In accordance with some implementations, a device includes one or more processors, a non-transitory memory, and one or more programs; the one or more programs are stored in the non-transitory memory and configured to be executed by the one or more processors and the one or more programs include instructions for performing or causing performance of any of the methods described herein. In accordance with some implementations, a non-transitory computer readable storage medium has stored therein instructions, which, when executed by one or more processors of a device, cause the device to perform or cause performance of any of the methods described herein. In accordance with some implementations, a device includes: one or more processors, a non-transitory memory, and means for performing or causing performance of any of the methods described herein.
So that the present disclosure can be understood by those of ordinary skill in the art, a more detailed description may be had by reference to aspects of some illustrative implementations, some of which are shown in the accompanying drawings.
In accordance with common practice the various features illustrated in the drawings may not be drawn to scale. Accordingly, the dimensions of the various features may be arbitrarily expanded or reduced for clarity. In addition, some of the drawings may not depict all of the components of a given system, method or device. Finally, like reference numerals may be used to denote like features throughout the specification and figures.
Numerous details are described in order to provide a thorough understanding of the example implementations. Those of ordinary skill in the art will appreciate that other effective aspects or variants do not include all of the specific details described herein. Moreover, well-known systems, methods, components, devices and circuits have not been described in exhaustive detail so as not to obscure more pertinent aspects of the example implementations described herein.
In the example of
While requiring user authentication for access to the entity's information systems and services, various types of unauthorized access may occur. An insider attack may occur when a user of the users 125a-n accesses a device or login account that that user is not authorized to or not otherwise supposed to access.
Implementations disclosed herein may identify the occurrence of and/or persons involved in an insider attack using biometric and/or other information.
At block 502, the method 500 detects an intrusion at an electronic device (e.g., the target's electronic device) accessing non-public information or systems of an organization, where the intrusion comprises a deviation from expected activity (e.g., behavior) at the electronic device. The intrusion may involve a malicious insider using credential of another user to gain access to one or more electronic devices to steal confidential data or perform an unauthorized action.
At block 504, the method 500 identifies biometric data associated with the electronic device during the intrusion, where the biometric data comprises one or more behavioral signals. This may involve extracting the biometric data of all profiles associated with the target user on the target's electronic device when intrusion happened.
At block 506, the method 500 identifies a subset of organization insiders based on the biometric data. This may involve comparing the biometric data against other profiles in the database and selecting top “suspects” based on relative scores of intrusion data and stored profiles. The method may execute one or more test queries for each suspect and/or calculate a score for each suspect based on predefined queries and whether the session is a remote or a local intrusion. One or more perpetrators behind an intrusion may be identified as suspects or perpetrators using behavioral biometric user identification.
Biometrics of the organization insiders may be tracked using one or more agents that monitor activities on electronic devices and systems accessed by the organization insiders. Biometric profiles may be developed using data tracked by such agents. Such data may include, but is not limited to, behavior biometric data, foreground process data, operating system events data, contextual data, application-specific data, open network connections data, or network topology data. In some implementations, biometric data associated with use of a device during the intrusion is compared with biometric data of multiple profiles. The data extraction and/or comparison may be performed within a threshold amount of time of the intrusion.
In some implementations, a subset of organization insiders is identified by selecting suspects based on scores determined using intrusion data and stored profiles. Such scores may be determined based on a behavioral characteristic exhibited by the intruder. Such scores are determined based on a characteristic recorded as having been exhibited by an insider in the past or identified as appropriate for an insider's profile.
At block 508, the method 500 provides a report based on the subset of organization insiders. (e.g., this may involve ranking suspects, determining which suspects to include in the report based on the rankings or queries, and providing details of queries in the report for further human analysis. In one example, the report identifies a single suspect as the perpetrator. In one example, the report ranks the suspects based on a score calculated or one or more queries performed for each of the suspects.
Implementations may achieve one or more of the following goals. Implementations may provide a forensics investigation capability for attack attribution by leveraging behavior biometrics, e.g., using continuous user activity monitoring and behavioral biometric profiling. Implementations may provide a user identification capability that allows searching and matching a captured intruder profile against stored profiles of insiders of the same organization. Implementations may identify attack characteristics by capturing a set of divergence characteristics of a hijacked session and feeding the set into security information management dashboards to determine the anomalous transaction source.
The techniques disclosed herein can be used in numerous circumstances including, but not limited to, the use cases illustrated in the following examples. These use cases describe incidents in which a malicious insider has previously stolen a target user's credentials (e.g., credentials of another member of the same organization) and then uses those credentials to gain access to the target electronic device, in person or remotely, to steal confidential data or perform unauthorized actions. Some implementations track biometrics of the insiders of an organization, for example, using one or more agents that monitor activities on the electronic devices and systems accessed by the organization insiders. Some implementations develop biometric profiles based on setting up electronic devices of the organization with one or more such agents to collect the following data.
Continuous authentication results may be stored, for example, in an external database. The data associated with those results, including the biometric data and contextual data collected during each authentication period, can be stored in a separate external database or discarded once authentication is performed based on a data retention policy. The data retention policy may take into consideration data sensitivity and authentication results. Consequently, it may retain only the less sensitive data (e.g., event logs and foreground process information) and discards sensitive data (e.g., biometric data and network data). However, for anomalous results or events leading to those results, the retention level may be increased to include even sensitive data.
Some implementations identify a perpetrator behind an insider attack using behavioral biometric user identification. In one example, this involves a processor executing instructions stored on a non-transitory computer-readable medium to execute a method. The method detects an intrusion at an electronic device (e.g., the target's electronic device) accessing non-public information or systems of an organization, where the intrusion is a deviation from expected activity (e.g., behavior) at the electronic device. The method identifies biometric data associated with the electronic device during the intrusion, where the biometric data includes one or more behavioral signals. For example, this may involve extracting the biometric data of all profiles associated with the target user on the target's electronic device when the intrusion happened, e.g., within a threshold amount of time before and/or after detecting an intrusion. The method identifies a subset (e.g., one or more) of organization insiders based on the biometric data. For example, this may involve comparing biometric data against other profiles in the database and selecting top “suspects” based on relative scores of intrusion data and stored profiles. The method may execute one or more test queries for each suspect and/or calculate a score for each suspect based on predefined queries and whether the session is a remote or a local intrusion. The method may provide a report (e.g., a notification, a document, a message, etc.) based on the subset of organization insiders. This may involve ranking suspects, determining which suspects to include in the report based on the rankings or queries, and/or providing details of queries in the report for further human analysis.
One exemplary implementation involves the following steps:
In this exemplary use case, without being seen, a malicious insider logs into the target's electronic device to copy confidential documents. For example, this may involve the following intruder actions:
In this exemplary use case, the following queries may be relevant and evaluated in the above-described methods:
In this exemplary use case, without being seen, a malicious insider logs into the target's electronic device to perform unauthorized modifications to the local electronic device, for example, by initiating a malicious software installation. For example, this may involve the following intruder actions:
In this exemplary use case, the following queries may be relevant and evaluated in the above-described methods:
In this exemplary use case, a malicious insider uses a remote desktop application to log into the target electronic device to perform unauthorized actions. For example, this may involve the following intruder actions:
In this exemplary use case, the following queries may be relevant and evaluated in the above-described methods:
Biometric user identification may be based on behavioral signals that may include data from input devices (e.g., keyboard, mouse), motion sensors (e.g., accelerometer, gyroscope and magnetometer), environmental sensors (e.g., camera, microphone, light sensor, thermometer, barometer and proximity sensor), position sensors (e.g., Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) such as GPS, GLONASS, etc.)), and/or physiological data sensor (e.g., heartbeat, breathing rate, ECG, wearable sensors).
Comparing biometric data and/or selecting suspects may involve determining one or more scores based on intrusion data and stored profiles. Such scores may be based on (a) a behavioral characteristic exhibited by the intruder and (b) the characteristic recorded as having been exhibited by an insider in the past or otherwise identified as appropriate for an insider's profile. As examples, the behavioral characteristic may be based on the timing of sequences of keystrokes, the timing of mouse position events, the timing of touchscreen events, and/or the timing of user hand positions during hand gesturing as captured in a sequence of images. Accordingly, the behavioral signals may correspond to timing and/or patterns. As additional examples, input data may include a time sequence of keystrokes that correspond to a particular user's typing pattern, a time sequence of mouse positions that correspond to a particular user's mouse use behavior, and/or data that corresponds to touchscreen events (x,y,z axis, pressure, duration). As another example, sensor data may correspond to a sequence of images or frames of a user's hand during hand gesture input. Some implementations interpret a stream of data (e.g., data that is received over time on an ongoing basis). In some implementations, a comparison may compare data using sliding window comparisons.
In some implementations, one or more scores are determined based on behavioral signals. Such a score may provide a measure of confidence. A score, in some implementations, is produced by using data (e.g., regarding human input, motion, peripheral device, etc.) to calculate a score. Cognitive, environmental, contextual and other signals may be used to inform the weighting of human input variables and/or the score itself.
The memory 620 includes high-speed random-access memory, such as DRAM, SRAM, DDR RAM, or other random-access solid-state memory devices. In some implementations, the memory 620 includes non-volatile memory, such as one or more magnetic disk storage devices, optical disk storage devices, flash memory devices, or other non-volatile solid-state storage devices. The memory 620 optionally includes one or more storage devices remotely located from the one or more processing units 602. The memory 620 comprises a non-transitory computer readable storage medium. In some implementations, the memory 620 or the non-transitory computer readable storage medium of the memory 620 stores an optional operating system 630 and one or more instruction set(s) 640. The operating system 630 includes procedures for handling various basic system services and for performing hardware dependent tasks. In some implementations, the instruction set(s) 640 include executable software defined by binary information stored in the form of electrical charge. In some implementations, the instruction set(s) 640 are software that is executable by the one or more processing units 602 to carry out one or more of the techniques described herein.
The instruction set(s) 640 include detection instruction set 642 configured to, upon execution, provide insider attack detection and/or attribution as described herein. The instruction set(s) 640 may be embodied as a single software executable or multiple software executables.
Although the instruction set(s) 640 are shown as residing on a single device, it should be understood that in other implementations, any combination of the elements may be located in separate computing devices. Moreover,
Numerous specific details are set forth herein to provide a thorough understanding of the claimed subject matter. However, those skilled in the art will understand that the claimed subject matter may be practiced without these specific details. In other instances, methods apparatuses, or systems that would be known by one of ordinary skill have not been described in detail so as not to obscure claimed subject matter.
Unless specifically stated otherwise, it is appreciated that throughout this specification discussions utilizing the terms such as “processing,” “computing,” “calculating,” “determining,” and “identifying” or the like refer to actions or processes of a computing device, such as one or more computers or a similar electronic computing device or devices, that manipulate or transform data represented as physical electronic or magnetic quantities within memories, registers, or other information storage devices, transmission devices, or display devices of the computing platform.
The system or systems discussed herein are not limited to any particular hardware architecture or configuration. A computing device can include any suitable arrangement of components that provides a result conditioned on one or more inputs. Suitable computing devices include multipurpose microprocessor-based computer systems accessing stored software that programs or configures the computing system from a general-purpose computing apparatus to a specialized computing apparatus implementing one or more implementations of the present subject matter. Any suitable programming, scripting, or other type of language or combinations of languages may be used to implement the teachings contained herein in software to be used in programming or configuring a computing device.
Implementations of the methods disclosed herein may be performed in the operation of such computing devices. The order of the blocks presented in the examples above can be varied for example, blocks can be re-ordered, combined, or broken into sub-blocks. Certain blocks or processes can be performed in parallel.
The use of “adapted to” or “configured to” herein is meant as open and inclusive language that does not foreclose devices adapted to or configured to perform additional tasks or steps. Additionally, the use of “based on” is meant to be open and inclusive, in that a process, step, calculation, or other action “based on” one or more recited conditions or values may, in practice, be based on additional conditions or value beyond those recited. Headings, lists, and numbering included herein are for ease of explanation only and are not meant to be limiting.
It will also be understood that, although the terms “first,” “second,” etc. may be used herein to describe various elements, these elements should not be limited by these terms. These terms are only used to distinguish one element from another. For example, a first node could be termed a second node, and, similarly, a second node could be termed a first node, which changing the meaning of the description, so long as all occurrences of the “first node” are renamed consistently and all occurrences of the “second node” are renamed consistently. The first node and the second node are both nodes, but they are not the same node.
The terminology used herein is for the purpose of describing particular implementations only and is not intended to be limiting of the claims. As used in the description of the implementations and the appended claims, the singular forms “a,” “an,” and “the” are intended to include the plural forms as well, unless the context clearly indicates otherwise. It will also be understood that the term “or” as used herein refers to and encompasses any and all possible combinations of one or more of the associated listed items. It will be further understood that the terms “comprises” or “comprising,” when used in this specification, specify the presence of stated features, integers, steps, operations, elements, or components, but do not preclude the presence or addition of one or more other features, integers, steps, operations, elements, components, or groups thereof.
As used herein, the term “if” may be construed to mean “when” or “upon” or “in response to determining” or “in accordance with a determination” or “in response to detecting,” that a stated condition precedent is true, depending on the context. Similarly, the phrase “if it is determined [that a stated condition precedent is true]” or “if [a stated condition precedent is true]” or “when [a stated condition precedent is true]” may be construed to mean “upon determining” or “in response to determining” or “in accordance with a determination” or “upon detecting” or “in response to detecting” that the stated condition precedent is true, depending on the context.
The foregoing description and summary of the invention are to be understood as being in every respect illustrative and exemplary, but not restrictive, and the scope of the invention disclosed herein is not to be determined only from the detailed description of illustrative implementations but according to the full breadth permitted by patent laws. It is to be understood that the implementations shown and described herein are only illustrative of the principles of the present invention and that various modification may be implemented by those skilled in the art without departing from the scope and spirit of the invention.
This application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application Ser. No. 63/166,559 filed Mar. 26, 2021 and entitled “Forensics Analysis for Malicious Insider Attack Attribution based on Activity Monitoring and Behavioral Biometrics Profiling,” which is incorporated herein in its entirety.
Number | Date | Country | |
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63166559 | Mar 2021 | US |