British Telecommunications Public Limited Company

Telefonaktiebolaget Lm Ericsson (publ)

British Telecommunications Corporation

Ian Herwono

Fadi El-Moussa

Joachim Sachs

Zhan Cui

Xiao-Si Wang

Henning Wiemann

Ben Azvine

Karl Smith

James E Jones

Paul W Hodgson

Martin Brown

James Edward Jones

Paul William Hodgson

A computer implemented method to mitigate a security attack against a target virtual machine (VM) in a virtualized computing environment, the target VM having a target VM configuration including configuration parameters, and the security attack exhibiting a particular attack characteristic, is disclosed.

Reconfigured virtual machine to mitigate attack

A computer implemented method of protecting a target subnet, including a set of network connected devices in a hierarchy of subnets of a computer network, from malware attack. The method includes generating a dynamical system for each subnet in the network, each dynamical system modelling a rate of change of a number of network connected devices in the subnet that are: susceptible to infection by the malware; infected by the malware; protected against infection by the malware; and remediated of infection by the malware. The dynamical systems are based on rates of transmission of the malware between pairs of subnets; evaluating a measure of risk of infection of the target subnet at a predetermined point in time based on the dynamical system for the target subnet; and responsive to the measure of risk meeting a predetermined threshold, deploying malware protection measures to devices in the target subnet.

Malware infection prediction

A method of computer security for a host computer system in communication with remote computer systems includes generating an attack map modelling individual events leading to an exploitation of the host computer system by collecting a log of each of a plurality of attack events occurring at the host, using stacked autoencoders to extract features from the log event in each attack, and generating a directed graph representation based on each of the extracted features. The method further includes determining a subset of nodes in the attack map corresponding to events in one or more attacks, determining a component of the host computer system involved in each attack event represented by each of the nodes in the subset, and deploying one or more security facilities at each of the determined components of the host computer system so as to mitigate attacks according to each of the attack patterns.

Pre-emptive computer security

A computer implemented method of protecting a portion of a computer network from malware attack, the computer network including a network connected devices organized into hierarchical subnets modelled by a tree data structure in which each subnet is represented as a node in the tree, each node having a connection to parent node save for a root node, the method including performing protective actions on devices in subnets associated with a first subset of nodes to provide protection against the malware, prioritizing devices in the subnets associated with a second subset of nodes so as to provide a barrier of subnets protected against the malware to impede the propagation of the malware to devices in subnets associated with each of the first subset of nodes.

Malware barrier

A method of computer security for a host computer system in communication with remote computer systems, including generating an attack map as a directed graph data structure modelling individual events leading to an exploitation of the host computer system and collecting a log of each of a plurality of attack events occurring at the host including network packets involved in each attack event, the attack map being generated in a training phase of the host computer system in which the host is subjected to attacks by one or more attacking remote computer systems, using stacked autoencoders to extract features from the log event in each attack; generating a directed graph representation based on each of the extracted features, using the attack map to identify a sequence of events indicative of an attack, and responsive to the identification, deploying one or more security facilities to mitigate the attack.

Computer security

A method of computer security for a host computer system in communication with remote computer systems, including generating an attack map as a directed graph data structure modelling individual events leading to an exploitation of the host computer system and collecting a log of each of a plurality of attack events occurring at the host including network packets involved in each attack event, the attack map being generated in a training phase of the host computer system in which the host is subjected to attacks by one or more attacking remote computer systems; using stacked autoencoders to extract features from the log event in each attack; generating a directed graph representation based on each of the extracted features; and responsive to an occurrence of a new attack in the host computer system, triggering the regeneration of the attack map including additional events generated in respect of the new attack.

Adaptive computer security

Mitigating security attacks in virtualized computing environments

Systems and methods for identifying a computer security threat based on communication via a computer network. A method includes receiving a definition of acceptable network communication characteristics for communication protocols; receiving a set of security events for the communication, each security event including network communication characteristics for the communication; for each security event: a) identifying a communication protocol associated with the event; b) detecting deviations of network communication characteristics of the event from the acceptable network communication characteristics for the identified communication protocol; and c) generating a record of each deviation identifying a communication characteristic for which the deviation is detected, so as to generate a set of one or more records of deviation for the set of security events; and storing the set of records of deviation as a security threat identifier for identifying subsequent security threats by comparing with the set of records.

Detecting computer security threats using communication characteristics of communication protocols

A computer implemented method to identify a computer security threat based on communication via a computer network including receiving a definition of acceptable network communication characteristics for each of a plurality of communication protocols; receiving a set of security events for the communication, each security event including network communication characteristics for the communication; for each security event in the set of security events: a) identifying a communication protocol associated with the event; b) detecting deviations of network communication characteristics of the event from the acceptable network communication characteristics for the identified communication protocol; and c) generating a record of each deviation identifying a communication characteristic for which the deviation is detected, and identifying a computer security threat for the communication based on the records generated for the set of security events.

Network traffic threat identification

A computer implemented method to determine whether a target virtual machine (VM) in a virtualized computing environment is susceptible to a security attack, the method comprising: training a machine learning algorithm as a classifier based on a plurality of training data items, each training data item corresponding to a training VM and including a representation of parameters for a configuration of the training VM and a representation of characteristics of security attacks for the training VM; generating a data structure for storing one or more relationships between VM configuration parameters and attack characteristics, wherein the data structure is generated by sampling the trained machine learning algorithm to identify the relationships; determining a set of configuration parameters for the target VM; and identifying attack characteristics in the data structure associated with configuration parameters of the target VM as characteristics of attacks to which the target VM is susceptible.

Attack assessment in a virtualized computing environment

A computer implemented method to generate a classification scheme for configuration parameters of virtual machines (VMs) in a virtualized computing environment including: training a machine learning algorithm as a classifier based on a plurality of training data items, each training data item corresponding to a training VM and including a representation of parameters for a configuration of the training VM and a representation of characteristics of security attacks for the training VM; and generating a data structure for storing one or more relationships between VM configuration parameters and attack characteristics, wherein the data structure is generated by sampling the trained machine learning algorithm to identify the relationships.

Configuration parameters for virtual machines

A computer implemented method to determine a configuration of a target virtual machine (VM) in a virtualized computing environment to protect against a security attack exhibiting a particular attack characteristic.

Secure configuration in a virtualized computing environment

A computer implemented method to identify one or more parameters of a configuration of a target virtual machine (VM) in a virtualized computing environment used in a security attack against the target VM, the security attack exhibiting a particular attack characteristic, is disclosed.

Security in virtualized computing environments

A multi-stage event detector for monitoring a system to detect the occurrence of multistage events in the monitored system, the multi-stage event detector includes: one or more event detecting detector units () for detecting observable events occurring on the monitored system; one or more parameter generating detector units () for generating parameter values which vary over time dependent on the behavior of the monitored system; a hidden state determiner () for determining a likely sequence of states of interest of the system based on the outputs of the one or more event detecting detector units; and a transition determiner () for determining a likely transition occurrence based on a comparison of a set of values of a parameter or set of parameters generated by one or more of the one or more parameter generating detector units with a plurality of pre-specified functions or sets of values of a corresponding parameter or set of parameters associated with different transition occurrences.

Method and apparatus for detecting a multi-stage event

A multi-stage event detector for monitoring a system, the multi-stage event detector including: a process generator operable to generate main and sub-processes, each main and sub-process being operable to generate and initiate a detection agent each of which is operable to be triggered by detecting the occurrence of a trigger event and to report back to its generating process or sub-process upon being so triggered. Each process or sub-process is operable to respond to receipt of a report from a triggered detection agent by reporting the detection of a multi-stage event to an overall controller.

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London, United Kingdom

Ian Herwono