Temporal Signatures for Intrusion Detection

  • Authors:
  • A. Jones;S. Li

  • Affiliations:
  • -;-

  • Venue:
  • ACSAC '01 Proceedings of the 17th Annual Computer Security Applications Conference
  • Year:
  • 2001

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Abstract

We introduce a new method for detecting intrusionsbased on the temporal behavior of applications. It buildson an existing method of application intrusion detectiondeveloped at the University of New Mexico that uses asystem call sequence as a signature. Intrusions aredetected by comparing the signature of the intrusion andthat of the normal application. But when the system callsequences generated by the intrusion and the normalapplication are sufficiently similar, this method cannotwork. By extending system call signature to incorporatetemporal information related to the application, we forma richer signature. Analysis shows that the temporalbehavior for many applications is relatively stable. Weexclude high variance data when creating a normaldatabase to characterize an application with a temporalsignature. It can then be the basis for future comparisonsin an intrusion detection system. This paper discussesexperiments that test the effectiveness of the temporalsignature on different applications, alternative intrusions,and in various environments. The results show that bychoosing appropriate analysis methods andexperimentally adjusting the parameters, intrusions arereadily detected. Finally, we give some comparisonsbetween the temporal signature method and the systemcall method.