Resilient Information Systems Security
Resilient Information Systems Security
We have released the code with a demo or our poisoning attack described in the paper “Towards Poisoning of Deep Learning Algorithms with Back-gradient Optimization.” You can access the code in this link.
Andrea Paudice, Luis Muñoz-González, Emil C. Lupu. 2018. Label Sanitization against Label Flipping Poisoning Attacks. arXiv preprint arXiv:1803.00992. Many machine learning systems rely on data collected in the wild from untrusted sources, exposing the learning algorithms to data poisoning. Attackers can inject malicious data in the training dataset to subvert the learning process, compromising the performance of the algorithm producing errors in a targeted or an indiscriminate way. Label flipping attacks are a special case of data poisoning, where the attacker can control the labels assigned to a fraction of the training points. Even if the capabilities of the attacker […]
Andrea Paudice, Luis Muñoz-González, Andras Gyorgy, Emil C. Lupu. 2018. Detection of Adversarial Training Examples in Poisoning Attacks through Anomaly Detection. arXiv preprint arXiv:1802.03041. Data poisoning is one of the most relevant security threats against machine learning systems, where attackers can subvert the learning process by injecting malicious samples in the training data. Recent work in adversarial machine learning has shown that the so-called optimal attack strategies can successfully poison linear classifiers, degrading the performance of the system dramatically after compromising a small fraction of the training dataset. In this paper we propose a defence mechanism to mitigate the effect […]
Attack graphs offer a powerful framework for security risk assessment. They provide a compact representation of the attack paths that an attacker can follow to compromise network resources from the analysis of the network topology and vulnerabilities. The uncertainty about the attacker’s behaviour makes Bayesian networks suitable to model attack graphs to perform static and dynamic security risk assessment. Thus, whilst static analysis of attack graphs considers the security posture at rest, dynamic analysis accounts for evidence of compromise at run-time, helping system administrators to react against potential threats. In this paper, we introduce a Bayesian attack graph model that […]
In this work, we first extend the definition of poisoning attacks to multi-class problems. We then propose a novel poisoning algorithm based on the idea of back-gradient optimization, i.e., to compute the gradient of interest through automatic differentiation, while also reversing the learning procedure to drastically reduce the attack complexity. Compared to current poisoning strategies, our approach is able to target a wider class of learning algorithms, trained with gradient-based procedures, including neural networks and deep learning architectures. We empirically evaluate its effectiveness on several application examples, including spam filtering, malware detection, and handwritten digit recognition. We finally show that, […]
components given their vulnerabilities and interconnections and accounts for multi-step attacks spreading through the system. While static analysis considers the risk posture at rest, dynamic analysis also accounts for evidence of compromise, for example, from Security Information and Event Management software or forensic investigation. However, in this context, exact Bayesian inference techniques do not scale well. In this article, we show how Loopy Belief Propagation—an approximate inference technique—can be applied to attack graphs and that it scales linearly in the number of nodes for both static and dynamic analysis, making such analyses viable for larger networks. We experiment with different […]
Attack graphs are a powerful tool for security risk assessment by analysing network vulnerabilities and the paths attackers can use to compromise network resources. The uncertainty about the attacker’s behaviour makes Bayesian networks suitable to model attack graphs to perform static and dynamic analysis. Previous approaches have focused on the formalization of attack graphs into a Bayesian model rather than proposing mechanisms for their analysis. In this paper we propose to use efficient algorithms to make exact inference in Bayesian attack graphs, enabling the static and dynamic network risk assessments. To support the validity of our approach we have performed […]
IoT environments are vulnerable: many devices can be accessed physically and are not designed with security in mind. It is often impractical to patch all the vulnerabilities or to eliminate all possible threats. Unlike more traditional computing systems IoT environments bring together the physical, human and cyber aspects of a system. Each can be used to compromise the other and each can contribute towards monitoring and protecting the other. Given the complexity of possible attacks, techniques for identifying and assessing the security risk are needed. In traditional networked environments attack graphs have been proven as a powerful tool for representing […]
Ransomware has become one of the most prominent threats in cyber-security and recent attacks has shown the sophistication and impact of this class of malware. In essence, ransomware aims to render the victim’s system unusable by encrypting important files, and then, ask the user to pay a ransom to revert the damage. Several ransomware include sophisticated packing techniques, and are hence difficult to statically analyse. In our previous work, we developed EldeRan, a machine learning approach to analyse and classify ransomware dynamically. EldeRan monitors a set of actions performed by applications in their first phases of installation checking for characteristics […]
Attack graphs are a powerful tool for security risk assessment by analysing network vulnerabilities and the paths attackers can use to compromise valuable network resources. The uncertainty about the attacker’s behaviour and capabilities make Bayesian networks suitable to model attack graphs to perform static and dynamic analysis. Previous approaches have focused on the formalization of traditional attack graphs into a Bayesian model rather than proposing mechanisms for their analysis. In this paper we propose to use efficient algorithms to make exact inference in Bayesian attack graphs, enabling the static and dynamic network risk assessments. To support the validity of our […]