Can a good offense be a good defense? Vulnerability testing of anomaly detectors through an artificial arms race

  • Authors:
  • Hilmi Güneş Kayacık;A. Nur Zincir-Heywood;Malcolm I. Heywood

  • Affiliations:
  • Carleton University, School of Computer Science, 1125 Colonel By Drive, Ottawa, ON K1S 5B6, Canada;Dalhousie University, Faculty of Computer Science, 6050 University Avenue, Halifax, NS B3H 1W5, Canada;Dalhousie University, Faculty of Computer Science, 6050 University Avenue, Halifax, NS B3H 1W5, Canada

  • Venue:
  • Applied Soft Computing
  • Year:
  • 2011

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Abstract

Abstract: Intrusion detection systems, which aim to protect our IT infrastructure are not infallible. Attackers take advantage of detector vulnerabilities and weaknesses to evade detection, hence hindering the effectiveness of the detectors. To do so, attackers generate evasion attacks which can eliminate or minimize the detection while successfully achieving the attacker's goals. This work proposes an artificial arms race between an automated 'white-hat' attacker and various anomaly detectors for the purpose of identifying detector weaknesses. The proposed arms race aims to automate the vulnerability testing of the anomaly detectors so that the security experts can be more proactive in eliminating detector vulnerabilities.