Message Type Identification of Binary Network Protocols using Continuous Segment Similarity

Autor: Stephan Kleber, Frank Kargl, Rens Wouter van der Heijden
Rok vydání: 2020
Předmět:
FOS: Computer and information sciences
Computer Science - Cryptography and Security
Computersicherheit
Computer science
Feature vector
02 engineering and technology
Similarity measure
computer.software_genre
External Data Representation
Computer Science - Networking and Internet Architecture
020204 information systems
Computer network protocols
0202 electrical engineering
electronic engineering
information engineering

DDC 004 / Data processing & computer science
Evaluation
Cluster analysis
Computer networks
Kommunikationsprotokoll
Networking and Internet Architecture (cs.NI)
vulnerability research
Reversible computing
Byte
Netzwerk
network reconnaissance
Identification (information)
Data transmission systems
protocol reverse engineering
020201 artificial intelligence & image processing
Data mining
ddc:004
Testing
Data processing
Communications protocol
Cryptography and Security (cs.CR)
computer
Zdroj: INFOCOM
DOI: 10.1109/infocom41043.2020.9155275
Popis: Protocol reverse engineering based on traffic traces infers the behavior of unknown network protocols by analyzing observable network messages. To perform correct deduction of message semantics or behavior analysis, accurate message type identification is an essential first step. However, identifying message types is particularly difficult for binary protocols, whose structural features are hidden in their densely packed data representation. We leverage the intrinsic structural features of binary protocols and propose an accurate method for discriminating message types. Our approach uses a similarity measure with continuous value range by comparing feature vectors where vector elements correspond to the fields in a message, rather than discrete byte values. This enables a better recognition of structural patterns, which remain hidden when only exact value matches are considered. We combine Hirschberg alignment with DBSCAN as cluster algorithm to yield a novel inference mechanism. By applying novel autoconfiguration schemes, we do not require manually configured parameters for the analysis of an unknown protocol, as required by earlier approaches. Results of our evaluations show that our approach has considerable advantages in message type identification result quality and also execution performance over previous approaches.
11 pages, 4 figures
Databáze: OpenAIRE