Automated Detection of Assets and Calculation of their Criticality for the Analysis of Information System Security

Abstract

The research aims to develop the technique for an automated detection of information system assets and comparative assessment of their criticality for farther security analysis of the target infrastructure. The assets are all information and technology objects of the target infrastructure. The size, heterogeneity, complexity of interconnections, distribution and constant modification of the modern information systems complicate this task. An automated and adaptive determination of information and technology assets and connections between them based on the determination of the static and dynamic objects of the initially uncertain infrastructure is rather challenging problem. The paper proposes dynamic model of connections between objects of the target infrastructure and the technique for its building based on the event correlation approach. The developed technique is based on the statistical analysis of the empirical data on the system events. The technique allows determining main types of analysed infrastructure, their characteristics and hierarchy. The hierarchy is constructed considering the frequency of objects use, and as the result represents their relative criticality for the system operation. For the listed goals the indexes are introduced that determine belonging of properties to the same type, joint use of the properties, as well as dynamic indexes that characterize the variability of properties relative to each other. The resulting model is used for the initial comparative assessment of criticality for the system objects. The paper describes the input data, the developed models and proposed technique for the assets detection and comparison of their criticality. The experiments that demonstrate an application of the developed technique on the example of analyzing security logs of Windows operating system are provided.