============================================================================ ,,_ ____ _ _ ___ o" )~ / ___| _ __ ___ _ __| |_ / \ |_ _| '''' \___ \| '_ \ / _ \| '__| __| / _ \ | | ___) | | | | (_) | | | |_ / ___ \ | | |____/|_| |_|\___/|_| \__| /_/ \_\___| _ __ _ __ ___ _ __ _ __ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ _ __ | '_ \| '__/ _ \ '_ \| '__/ _ \ / __/ _ \/ __/ __|/ _ \| '__| | |_) | | | __/ |_) | | | (_) | (_| __/\__ \__ \ (_) | | | .__/|_| \___| .__/|_| \___/ \___\___||___/___/\___/|_| |_| |_| ~ A REALLY smart preprocessor module for Snort ~ by BlackLight , http://0x00.ath.cx ============================================================================ This document describes the AI preprocessor module for Snort. It also describes how to get it, install it, configure it and use it correctly. Table of contents: 1. What's Snort AI preprocessor 2. How to get Snort AI preprocessor 3. Installation 3.1 Dependancies 3.2 Configure options 4. Basic configuration 5. Correlation rules 6. Output database 7. Web interface 8. Additional correlation modules 9. Additional documentation =============================== 1. What's Snort AI preprocessor =============================== Snort AI preprocessor is a preprocessor module for Snort whose purpose is making the reading of Snort's alerts more comfortable, clustering false positive alarms emphasizing their root cause in order to reduce log pollution, clustering similar alerts in function of the type and hierarchies over IP addresses and ports that can be decided by the user, depending on the kind of traffic and topology of the network, and constructing the flows of a multi-step attack in function of correlation rules between hyperalerts provided by the developer itself, by third parts or created by the user itself, again, in function of the scenario of the network. It will furthermore possible, in a close future, to correlate the hyperalerts automatically, by self-learning on the base of the acquired alerts. =================================== 2. How to get Snort AI preprocessor =================================== It it strongly suggested to get the latest and always-fresh release of Snort AI preprocessor from GitHub -> http://github.com/BlackLight/Snort_AIPreproc git clone git://github.com/BlackLight/Snort_AIPreproc.git If git is not available on the machine or cannot be used, from the same page you can also choose "download source" and download the source code in tar.gz format. =============== 3. Installation =============== The installation procedure is the usual one: $ ./configure $ make $ make install If you did not install Snort in /usr directory you may need to use the --prefix option with configure for selecting the directory where you installed Snort (for example ./configure --prefix=$HOME/local/snort). If the prefix was specified correctly, and it actually points to the location where Snort was installed, the module binaries should be placed in $SNORT_DIR/lib/snort_dynamicpreprocessor after the installation, and automatically loaded by Snort at the next start. Moreover, a new directory named corr_rules will be created, in /etc/snort if the prefix was /usr or in $SNORT_DIR/etc otherwise, containing XML files describing default correlation rules provided by the developer. This set can be enriched in any moment with new XML files, provided by third parts or created by the user itself, describing more hyperalerts. ================ 3.1 Dependancies ================ Dependancies required for a correct compilation and configuration: - pthread (REQUIRED), used for running multiple threads inside of the module. On a Debian-based system, install libpthread-dev if you don't already have it. - libxml2 (REQUIRED), used for parsing XML files from corr_rules directory. On a Debian-based system, install libxml2-dev if you don't already have it. - libgraphviz (RECOMMENDED), used for generating PNG (and in future PS too) files representing hyperalert correlation graphs from .dot files generated from the software. You can remove this dependancy from the compilation process by specifying --without-graphviz to ./configure, but in this case you will have .dot files, not easily understandable by a human, for representing correlation graphs, and you may need an external graph rendering software for converting them in a more easily readable format. On a Debian system, install libgraphviz-dev if you don't already have it. - libmysqlclient (OPTIONAL), used if you want to read alerts information saved on MySQL DBMS, or enable MySQL support in the module. This option is disabled by default (if not specified otherwise, the module will read the alerts from Snort plain log files), and can be enabled by specifying the option --with-mysql to ./configure. On a Debian-based system you may need to install libmysqlclient-dev. - libpq (OPTIONAL), used if you want to read alerts information saved on PostgreSQL DBMS, or enable PostgreSQL support in the module. This option is disabled by the default, and can be enabled by specifying the option --with-postgresql to ./configure. On a Debian-based system you may need to install libpq-dev. - A DBMS (RECOMMENDED), MySQL and PostgreSQL are supported for now, for writing clusters, correlations and packet streams information on a DBMS, making the analysis easier. - Perl (RECOMMENDED), used for the CGI script in the web interface that saves a packet stream associated to an alert in .pcap format, to be analyzed by tools like tcpdump and Wireshark. - XML::Simple Perl module (RECOMMENDED), used by 'correlate.cgi' CGI script for reading and writing manual (un)correlations XML files. A quick way for installing it on a Unix system is by using CPAN: # cpan XML::Simple ===================== 3.2 Configure options ===================== You can pass the following options to ./configure script before compiling: --with-mysql - Enables MySQL DBMS support into the module (it requires libmysqlclient) --with-pq - Enables PostgreSQL DBMS support into the module (it requires libpq) --without-graphviz - Disables Graphviz support from the module, avoiding the generation of PNG or PS files representing hyperalerts correlation as well ====================== 4. Basic configuration ====================== After installing the module in Snort installation directory a configuration for this is required in snort.conf. A sample configuration may appear like the following: preprocessor ai: \ alertfile "/your/snort/dir/log/alert" \ alert_bufsize 30 \ alert_clustering_interval 300 \ alert_correlation_weight 5000 \ alert_history_file "/your/snort/dir/log/alert_history" \ alert_serialization_interval 3600 \ bayesian_correlation_interval 1200 \ bayesian_correlation_cache_validity 600 \ cluster ( class="dst_port", name="privileged_ports", range="1-1023" ) \ cluster ( class="dst_port", name="unprivileged_ports", range="1024-65535" ) \ cluster ( class="src_addr", name="local_net", range="192.168.1.0/24" ) \ cluster ( class="src_addr", name="dmz_net", range="155.185.0.0/16" ) \ cluster ( class="src_addr", name="vpn_net", range="10.8.0.0/24" ) \ cluster ( class="dst_addr", name="local_net", range="192.168.1.0/24" ) \ cluster ( class="dst_addr", name="dmz_net", range="155.185.0.0/16" ) \ cluster ( class="dst_addr", name="vpn_net", range="10.8.0.0/24" ) \ cluster_max_alert_interval 14400 \ clusterfile "/your/snort/dir/log/clustered_alerts" \ corr_modules_dir "/your/snort/dir/share/snort_ai_preproc/corr_modules" \ correlation_graph_interval 300 \ correlation_rules_dir "/your/snort/dir/etc/corr_rules" \ correlated_alerts_dir "/your/snort/dir/log/correlated_alerts" \ correlation_threshold_coefficient 0.5 \ database ( type="dbtype", name="snort", user="snortusr", password="snortpass", host="dbhost" ) \ database_parsing_interval 30 \ hashtable_cleanup_interval 300 \ manual_correlations_parsing_interval 120 \ max_hash_pkt_number 1000 \ neural_clustering_interval 1200 \ neural_network_training_interval 43200 \ neural_train_steps 10 \ output_database ( type="dbtype", name="snort", user="snortusr", password="snortpass", host="dbhost" ) \ output_neurons_per_side 20 \ tcp_stream_expire_interval 300 \ use_stream_hash_table 1 \ webserv_banner "Snort AIPreprocessor module" \ webserv_dir "/prefix/share/htdocs" \ webserv_port 7654 The options are the following: - alertfile: The file where Snort saves its alerts, if they are saved to a file and not to a database (default if not specified: /var/log/snort/alert) - alert_correlation_weight: When this number of alert is stored in the "memory" of the software (i.e. in the alert history file or in the output database), the weight for the heuristical correlation indexes (bayesian network and neural network) will be more or less equal to 0.95, on a scale from 0 to 1. This parameter expresses how much the heuristical indexes should be weighted and it can be considered like a kind of "learning rate" for the alert correlation algorithm (default value if not specified: 5000) - alert_history_file: The file keeping track of the history, in binary format, of all the alerts received by the IDS, so that the module can build some statistical correlation inferences over the past - alert_serialization_interval: The interval that should occur from a serialization of a buffer of alerts on the history file and the next one (default if not specified: 1 hour, as it is a quite expensive operation in terms of resources if the system received many alerts) - alert_bufsize: Size of the buffer containing the alerts to be sent, in group, to the serializer thread. The buffer is sent when full and made empty even when the alert_serialization_interval parameter is not expired yet, for avoiding overflows, other memory problems or deadlocks (default value if not specified: 30) - alert_clustering_interval: The interval that should occur from the clustering of the alerts in the log according to the provided clustering hierarchies and the next one (default if not specified: 300 seconds) - bayesian_correlation_interval: Interval, in seconds, that should occur between two alerts in the history for considering them as, more or less strongly, correlated (default: 1200 seconds). NOTE: A value of 0 will disable the bayesian correlation. This setting is strongly suggested when your alert log is still "learning", i.e. when you don't have enough alerts yet. After this period, you can set the correlation interval to any value. - bayesian_correlation_cache_validity: interval, in seconds, for which an entry in the bayesian correlation hash table (i.e. a pair of alerts with the associated historical bayesian correlation) is considered as valid before being updated (default: 600 seconds) - corr_modules_dir: This software supports a kind of plugins, or "modules over the module", that allow the user to specify some extra correlation rules and indexes. These modules are .so files placed in this directory (default if not specified: PREFIX/share/snort_ai_preproc/corr_modules), dynamically loaded by the module. For more information on how to write your own module, see the dedicated section in this file. - correlation_graph_interval: The interval that should occur from the building of the correlation graph between the clustered alerts and the next one (default if not specified: 300 seconds) - correlation_rules_dir: Directory where the correlation rules are saved, as XML files (default if not specified: /etc/snort/corr_rules) - correlated_alerts_dir: Directory where the information between correlated alerts will be saved, as .dot files ready to be rendered as graphs and, if libgraphviz support is enabled, as .png and .ps files as well (default if not specified: /var/log/snort/clustered_alerts) - correlation_threshold_coefficient: The threshold the software uses for stating two alerts are correlated is avg(correlation coefficient) + k * std_deviation(correlation_coefficient). The value of k is specified through this option, whose value is 0.5 by default, and is dependant on how "sensible" you want the correlation algorithm. A value of k=0 means "consider all the couples of alerts whose correlation coefficient is greater than the average one as correlated" (negative values of k are allowed as well, but unless you know what you're doing they're unrecommended, as some correlation constraints may appear where no correlation exists). When the value of k raises also the threshold for two alerts for being considered as correlated raises. A high value of k may just lead to an empty correlation graph - clusterfile: File where the clustered alerts will be saved by the module (default if not specified: /var/log/snort/clustered_alerts) - cluster_max_alert_interval: Maximum time interval, in seconds, occurred between two alerts for considering them as part of the same cluster (default: 14400 seconds, i.e. 4 hours). Specify 0 for this option if you want to cluster alerts regardlessly of how much time occurred between them - cluster: Clustering hierarchy or list of hierarchies to be applied for grouping similar alerts. This option needs to specify: -- class: Class of the cluster node. It may be src_addr, dst_addr, src_port or dst_port -- name: Name for the clustering node -- range: Range of the clustering node. It can include a single port or IP address, an IP range (specified as subnet x.x.x.x/x), or a port range (specified as xxx-xxx) - database: If Snort saves its alerts to a database and the module was compiled with database support (e.g. --with-mysql) this option specifies the information for accessing that database. The fields in side are -- type: DBMS to be used (so far MySQL and PostgreSQL are supported) -- name: Database name -- user: Username for accessing the database -- password: Password for accessing the database -- host: Host holding the database - database_parsing_interval: The interval that should occur between a read of the alerts from database and the next one (default if not specified: 30 seconds) - hashtable_cleanup_interval: The interval that should occur from the cleanup of the hashtable of TCP streams and the next one (default if not specified: 300 seconds). Set this option to 0 for performing no cleanup on the stream hash table - max_hash_pkt_number: Maximum number of packets that each element of the stream hash table should hold, set it to 0 for no limit (default value if not specified: 1000) - manual_correlations_parsing_interval: Interval in seconds between an execution of the thread for parsing the alert correlations manually set and the next one (default value if not specified: 120 seconds) - neural_clustering_interval: Interval in seconds between an execution of the thread for clustering (using k-means) the alerts on the output layer of the neural network in order to recognize likely attack scenarios, and the next one. Set this to 0 if you want no clusterization (default if not specified: 1200 seconds) - neural_network_training_interval: Interval in seconds between an execution of the thread for training the neural network using the set of recent alerts and the next one (default if not specified: 43200 seconds) - neural_train_steps: Number of steps to take in each training cycle for the neural network (default: 10) - output_database: Specify this option if you want to save the outputs from the module (correlated alerts, clustered alerts, alerts information and their associated packets streams, and so on) to a relational database as well (by default the module only saves the alerts on static plain files). The options here are the same specified for the 'database' option. The structure of this database can be seen in the files schemas/*.sql (replace to * the name of your DBMS). If you want to initialize the tables needed by the module, just give the right file to your database, e.g. for MySQL $ mysql -uusername -ppassword dbname < schemas/mysql.sql - output_neurons_per_side: Number of output neurons per side on the output layer of the neural network (that is a rectangular matrix). A higher number allows a higher granularity over similar alerts, but a linear increment of this value produces a squared increment of the computational complexity for the training and evaluation algorithms (default value if not specified: 20) - tcp_stream_expire_interval: The interval that should occur for marking a TCP stream as "expired", if no more packets are received inside of that and it's not "marked" as suspicious (default if not specified: 300 seconds) - use_stream_hash_table: Set this option to 0 if you do not want to use the hash table for storing the streams of packets associated to alerts, this is a good choice on a system where many alerts are triggered (default value if not specified: 1) - webserv_banner: Banner of the web server, to be placed on the error pages and in the "Server" HTTP reply header - webserver_dir: Directory containing the contents of the web server running over the module (default if none is specified: $PREFIX/share/snort_ai_preprocessor/htdocs) - webserver_port: Port where the web server will listen (default if none is specified: 7654). Set this value to 0 if you don't want to run the web server over the module for having the web interface (in this case, if you want to see the web graphical visualization of the alerts, you should manually copy the files contained in htdocs/ in a web server directory) ==================== 5. Correlation rules ==================== The hyperalert correlation rules are specified in $SNORT_DIR/etc/corr_rules directory through a very simple XML syntax, and any user can add some new ones. The files in there must be named like the Snort alert ID they want to model. For example, if we want to model a TCP portscan alert (Snort ID: 122.1.0) as a hyperalert, i.e. as an alert with pre-conditions and post-conditions to be correlated to other alerts, then we need to create a file named 122-1-0.xml inside $SNORT_DIR/etc/corr_rules with a content like the following: 122.1.0 (portscan) TCP Portscan 
HostExists(+DST_ADDR+)
HasService(+DST_ADDR+, +ANY_PORT+) The tag is optional, same for 
  and  if an alert has no
pre-conditions and/or post-conditions, while the  tag is mandatory for
identifying the hyperalert. In this case we say that the pre-condition for a TCP
portscan  for  being  successful  is  that the host +DST_ADDR+ exists (the macro
 +DST_ADDR+   will   automatically   be  expanded  at  runtime  and  substituted
 with   the   target   address   of  the  portscan).  The  post-condition  of  a
portscan  consists  in  the  attacker  knowing that +DST_ADDR+ runs a service on
+ANY_PORT+  (+ANY_PORT+  is another macro that will be expanded on runtime). The
hyperalerts  model  in  corr_rules  are  the knowledge base used for correlating
alerts triggered by Snort, the more information it has inside, the more accurate
and  complete  the  correlation will be. The macros recognized and automatically
expanded           from           these          XML          files          are


- +SRC_ADDR+: The IP address triggering the alert
- +DST_ADDR+: The target IP address in the alert
- +SRC_PORT+: The port from which the alert was triggered
- +DST_PORT+: The port on which the alert was triggered
- +ANY_ADDR+: Identifies any IP address
- +ANY_PORT+: Identifies any port


The correlation between two alerts A and B is made comparing the post-conditions
of  A  with  the  pre-conditions of B. If the correlaton coefficient computed in
this  way  is  greater  than  a  certain  threshold (see "Basic configuration ->
 correlation_threshold_coefficient")    then    the   alerts   are   marked   as
correlated, i.e. the alert A determines the alert B. This supports an elementary
reasoning  algorithm  for  doing inferences on the conditions. For example, if A
has  the  post-condition  "HasService(+DST_ADDR+,  +ANY_PORT+)"  and  B  has the
pre-condition "HasService(+DST_ADDR, 22)", a match between A and B is triggered.
Same   if   A   has   "HostExists(10.8.0.0/24)"  as  post-condition  and  B  has
"HostExists(10.8.0.1)" as pre-condition.

There  is  no  fixed  semantics  for  the  the  predicates in pre-conditions and
post-conditions,  any  predicates  can  be used. The only constraint is that the
same  predicates have the same semantic and prototype in all of the hyperalerts.
For  example,  if  HasService  has a prototype like "HasService(ip_addr, port)",
then   all    the  hyperalerts  should  follow  this  prototype,  otherwise  the
matching    would   fail.   Any  new  predicates  can  be  defined  as  well  in
hyperalerts,      provided     that     it     respects     this     constraint.


==================
6. Output database
==================

If the output_database option is specified in the documentation, the alerts, and
the  relative  clusters,  correlations  and  packet streams information, will be
saved  on  a  database as well. This is strongly suggested, first for making the
management  of  the module's information easier (a SELECT query needs to be done
 for   doing   also   complex   searches   instead   of   grep-ing  or  manually
 searching  inside  of  a  text  file),  second  because  the  web  interface of
the  module  can  work  ONLY if the output_database option is specified (the web
 interface  strongly  depends  on  the  unique  IDs  assigned  to  the alerts by
 the   database   interface).  Note  that  for  using  this  option  you  should
explicitly  tell  to  the  ./configure script which DBMS you're going to use, so
that  it  knows  which  APIs  to use for interfacing with the database, e.g. via
--with-mysql                        or                        --with-postgresql.

After  you  compile  the  module,  you  should  pick up the right .sql file from
schemas/   directory   (for   example  mysql.sql  or  postgresql.sql),  or  from
$PREFIX/share/snort_ai_preprocessor/schemas   after   the  installation  of  the
module,        and        import        it        in        your       database,

$ mysql -uusername -ppassword dbname < schemas/mysql.sql (for MySQL)
$ psql -U username -W dbname < schemas/postgresql.sql (for PostgreSQL)

You  can check the structure of the database from the SQL file for your DBMS, or
from      the      E/R      schema     saved     in     schemas/database_ER.png.


================
7. Web interface
================

The  module  provides  an  optional (but strongly recommended) web interface for
browsing   the   triggered   (and  already  clustered)  security  alerts,  their
correlations  and  their  packet  streams  information  from  your browser. This
feature  can  be switched off by setting the configuration option "webserv_port"
of  the module to 0. Otherwise, if none between webserv_dir and webserv_port are
specified,  the  web server thread starts with the module picking by default the
directory  $PREFIX/share/snort_ai_preproc/htdocs  as document root and listening
for        incoming        connections       on       the       port       7654.

You  should  use  a  browser supporting JavaScript, AJAX and SVG technologies in
order  to  view  correctly the alert web interface on your browser (successfully
 tested  with  Firefox  3.5,  Chrome  and  Opera  10),  for  example, connecting
to  the  address  http://localhost:7654.  You can drag and drop the nodes in the
graph,  modifying  the  layout  of  the  graph  on the fly or using the "redraw"
function.  Each  node  represents a clustered alert. For viewing the information
over  that  cluster and the alerts group inside, just click on the node. You can
optionally  save  the  stream  of packets associated to a certain alert in .pcap
format  (analyzable  by  tools  like  tcpdump  and  Wireshark)  from  this  same
interface.  This  feature, anyway, is based on the CGI script pcap.cgi inside of
the  document  root, and it requires the Perl interpreter to be installed on the
machine.

The  web  server  running  over  the  module  is  a true web server with its own
document  path,  so  you  can use it as stand-alone web server as well and place
your  documents  and  files  inside.  You can moreover place some CGI scripts or
applications  made  in  the  language  you  prefer,  as  long  as they are files
executable    by    any    users   and   they   have   the   extension   ".cgi".

A powerful featured offered by the web interface is the one that allows the user
to manually "mark" two alerts as correlated, if the system didn't do that, or as
not  correlated,  if  the  system  made  a  mistake correlating two uncorrelated
alerts.  These decisions are made simply by clicking the right button on the web
page  and  clicking  the two alerts to mark as correlated or uncorrelated. After
that,  all  the  alerts  of  those  types  will  be  marted  as  correlated,  or
uncorrelated.


=================================
8. Additional correlation modules
=================================

It  is  possible  to  add  extra  parameters  and  indexes  for  evaluating  the
correlation  between  two  alerts  in  an  extremely  simple  way. The directory
specified  in  the  configuration  option  "corr_modules_dir" contains the extra
modules  (as  binary  shared  libraries  ->  .so).  Each of these modules should
contain          a          function          whose         prototype         is


double  AI_corr_index ( AI_snort_alert*, AI_snort_alert* )


taking  two alerts as parameters and returning a correlation value between them,
and               one              whose              prototype              is


double  AI_corr_index_weight ()


returning  a  coefficient  in  [0,1]  expressing  the  weight  of that index. An
example  module  is  contained  in  the  corr_modules  directory  in  the source
directory,  or in PREFIX/share/snort_ai_preproc/corr_modules after installation.

When  you  write  your  own module, just add in the Makefile in the corr_modules
directory  a  line  like  the one already present there for compiling, then type
`make'.   You   may   need   to   link   your   module  source  file(s)  against
libsf_ai_preproc.la  if  you  want to use some of the functions from the module,
 for  example,  for  reading  the  alerts  stored  in  the  history file, in the
 database,       the       current       correlations,      and      so      on.


===========================
9. Additional documentation
===========================

The additional documentation over the code, functions and data structures can
be automatically generated by Doxygen by typing `make doc', and installed  in
$PREFIX/share/snort_ai_preproc/doc then after `make install'.