Re: [cacao] Agenda for next Tuesday's call

[Frans Schippers <f.h.schippers@hva.nl>]

All

I would personally more go for a programming language approach,
This because my idea was a fully automated system.
However following the discussion is seems that Cacao is more intended to automated the workflow,
And not the actual actions.

Just my opinion.

Frans

> On 15 Oct 2019, at 13:57, Allen Hadden <ahadden@us.ibm.com> wrote:
> 
> +1 on BPMN combining the logical and graphical representation.  The alternative is to display the logic tree logically, which might not be how people are actually thinking about the problem (and would be different for different implementations).
>  
> Regarding translation to SOAR tools.  We've done similar translations for our customers who had pre-existing BPMN diagrams and wanted to convert them into Resilient's BPMN.  I think we may have actually done it for a JHU/APL example at some point too.  The trick with BPMN and portability between SOAR tools are the model bindings.  For example, if there's a condition (e.g. exclusive gateway in BPMN), on what variables is it acting?  If there's a script, what variables can it read/write and functions can it call?  If you can define the bindings, then achieving BPMN portability is achievable.
>  
> Having spent 3+ years working with BPMN in SOAR, I can say confidently that has had an answer for all workflow problems we've encountered in customer use cases.  It exposes many of the complexities that you encounter in process modeling. For example, the semantics for branching and joining are way more complicated in reality than most would initially expect.  If you roll your own, you're likely to oversimplify or get yourself into a quagmire that the BPMN spec has already dealt with.
>  
> After saying all that, I'm still on the fence about how BPMN-centric CACAO should be.  It is big and the full BPMN doesn't seem necessary and might deter adoption.  The desire for JSON is also incompatible, although a logical translation is possible (even if the JK posted isn't the one).
>  
> When we discussed this originally, I felt (like Allan T) that we could keep CACAO logically consistent with BPMN but limited to just the things we need.  I still think that's the best option, but am not sure if that's a new language or perhaps a BPMN subset realized as JSON instead of XML.
>  
> Allen
> Allen Hadden
> STSM & Chief Architect | IBM Resilient
> 
> <Image.15235377696330.jpg>
> w: 508-560-3502
> e: ahadden@us.ibm.com 	<Image.15235377696331.jpg>
>  
>  
> ----- Original message -----
> From: "Marr, Karin W." <Karin.Marr@jhuapl.edu>
> Sent by: <cacao@lists.oasis-open.org>
> To: Allan Thomson <athomson@lookingglasscyber.com>, Allen Hadden <ahadden@us.ibm.com>
> Cc: "Bret_Jordan@symantec.com" <Bret_Jordan@symantec.com>, "cacao@lists.oasis-open.org" <cacao@lists.oasis-open.org>, Jason Keirstead <Jason.Keirstead@ca.ibm.com>
> Subject: [EXTERNAL] RE: [cacao] Agenda for next Tuesday's call
> Date: Mon, Oct 14, 2019 4:58 PM
>  
> All,
> I would like to add in some experimentation that JHU/APL has done with BPMN for Playbooks before we all dismiss the concept of using BPMN.
>  
> First â we determined that we only need a small subset of the BMPN symbols for the flow. Second, we worked with Demisto and Cybersponse tools to âtranslateâ the XML produced from BPMN to the SOAR Platform native language. For  Cybersponse â that was JSON (they did the translation for us). For Demisto â we created the XML-YAML translation using Python. We found that â although there are numerous (40+) free BPMN tools available, we could use the python code to translate any of the BPMN XML outputs to YAML.
>  
> I have attached one of our BPMN (we called them workflows) playbooks and its XML output (these were demonstrated at one of our IACD ICs).  To see the video of this go to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sG1S3BIpqrM
>  
> Bottom-line â there needs to be some sort of tool that can be used to create the playbooks and output some machine readable code. We chose BPMN because itâs already a standard, most tools are free and many are pretty straight forward to use. Is it overkill? Maybe, BPMN is powerful but its far simpler than creating our own. The advantage to BPMN also includes having one tool that can be used to generate both the graphic representation for the developers/consumers to understand and machine readable code for SOAR Platforms to ingest. We have also taken a Cybersponse Playbook â converted it to BPMN XML, altered it in BPMN and then uploaded it to Demisto, successfully.
>  
> If you want more information and workflows (CACAO playbook) examples please see: https://www.iacdautomate.org/playbook-and-workflow-examples
>  
> Thanks, look forward to tomorrowâs call.
> Karin W. Marr
> â 240-228-7760 | ð 240-381-4421
>  
> From: cacao@lists.oasis-open.org <cacao@lists.oasis-open.org> On Behalf Of Allan Thomson
> Sent: Monday, October 14, 2019 10:05 AM
> To: Allen Hadden <ahadden@us.ibm.com>
> Cc: Bret_Jordan@symantec.com; cacao@lists.oasis-open.org; Jason Keirstead <Jason.Keirstead@ca.ibm.com>
> Subject: Re: [cacao] Agenda for next Tuesday's call
>  
> Allen â I âthinkâ we (or at least you and I do) agree that BPMN is probably overkill for what we need.
>  
> To re-iterate my perspective, I think a subset of what BPMN does in JSON is sufficient for âmostâ requirements. Iâm not sure I agree the JSON translation that was pointed to is the best approach from my perspective. Taking something that was designed for XML and much broader uses is not necessarily the most effective way to design something.
>  
> My point was that the group should discuss the pros/cons in the upcoming meeting on approaches (not just BPMN) so that we can have consensus on an approach that works for all orgs participating.
>  
> Regards
>  
> Allan
>  
> From: Allen Hadden <ahadden@us.ibm.com>
> Date: Monday, October 14, 2019 at 5:08 AM
> To: Allan Thomson <athomson@lookingglasscyber.com>
> Cc: "Bret_Jordan@symantec.com" <Bret_Jordan@symantec.com>, "cacao@lists.oasis-open.org" <cacao@lists.oasis-open.org>, Jason Keirstead <Jason.Keirstead@ca.ibm.com>
> Subject: RE: [cacao] Agenda for next Tuesday's call
>  
> Our product uses BPMN for playbooks today.  I'd say that there's nothing that CACAO will want to do that cannot in some way be represented in BPMN.  There is nothing (or at least very little) in BPMN that wouldn't be useful for CACAO.  This shouldn't be surprising since BPMN is intended to express business processes and what we're talking about with playbooks are exactly that...business processes, but in the security domain.
>  
> The problem is that if you look at BPMN, a lot of what's there would just be considered "nice to have" from a CACAO perspective.  Good example:  swim lanes.  Could you come up with a CACAO use case that could make use of swim lanes?  Sure.  Would they be required?  Not really.
>  
> A lot of the advanced BPMN features are only useful when you start trying to express general organizational playbooks (e.g. CompanyX's Malware Process) instead of playbooks targeted at mitigating specific threats (e.g. Mitigate MalwareX).
>  
> Another problem is that full BPMN is so large that realistically the only way to develop a product with it is to integrate an existing BPMN product.  Implementing your own would be a ton of work and adapting it to fit a less flexible model in an existing product would be tough.  So on the one hand, it's great to be able to leverage an existing library.  OTOH, is that a position we want to take as a spec?
>  
> One option worth of consideration is to take the JSON-translation that Jason K. linked and define the following:
>  
> 1) a "whitelist" showing which elements are to be included (e.g. don't include "swim lanes" if we don't think they're important).
> 2) specific extensions to the model (BPMN supports extension elements and we'd very likely need some...for example, "service tasks" for OpenC2, Ansible, etc.)
> 3) object models on which the process will depend (e.g. it could be that a playbook works against a "threat", which would probably be a STIX model)
>  
> Probably there are other things we'd need besides those 3, but that should get the ball rolling if we decide to consider that path.
>  
> Allen
> Allen Hadden
> STSM & Chief Architect | IBM Resilient
> 
> <Image.image001.jpg@01D582AB.E45D0EA0.jpg>
> w: 508-560-3502
> e: ahadden@us.ibm.com 
> <Image.image002.jpg@01D582AB.E45D0EA0.jpg>
>  
>  
> ----- Original message -----
> From: Allan Thomson <athomson@lookingglasscyber.com>
> Sent by: <cacao@lists.oasis-open.org>
> To: Jason Keirstead <Jason.Keirstead@ca.ibm.com>, Bret Jordan <Bret_Jordan@symantec.com>
> Cc: "cacao@lists.oasis-open.org" <cacao@lists.oasis-open.org>
> Subject: [EXTERNAL] Re: [cacao] Agenda for next Tuesday's call
> Date: Fri, Oct 11, 2019 7:56 PM
>  
> The intention is to take relevant lessons from BPMN.
>  
> We debate whether we want to have only a subset or the entire BPMN for this given that BPMN covers a much broader perspective/goal.
>  
> When we discussed this in the past the smaller group felt that we didnât need or want the burden of the entire BPMN. It comes with both complexity and a burden to support all of that when for cybersecurity operations a subset may be fine.
>  
> Allan
>  
> From: <cacao@lists.oasis-open.org> on behalf of Jason Keirstead <Jason.Keirstead@ca.ibm.com>
> Date: Friday, October 11, 2019 at 3:55 PM
> To: Bret Jordan <Bret_Jordan@symantec.com>
> Cc: "cacao@lists.oasis-open.org" <cacao@lists.oasis-open.org>
> Subject: Re: [cacao] Agenda for next Tuesday's call
>  
> Isn't this BPMN in JSON? https://github.com/bpmn-io/bpmn-moddle/blob/master/resources/bpmn-io/json/bioc.json
> 
> 
> -
> Jason Keirstead
> Chief Architect - IBM Security Threat Management
> www.ibm.com/security
> 
> "Would you like me to give you a formula for success? It's quite simple, really. Double your rate of failure."
> 
> - Thomas J. Watson
> 
> 
> 
> From:        Bret Jordan <Bret_Jordan@symantec.com>
> To:        "cacao@lists.oasis-open.org" <cacao@lists.oasis-open.org>
> Date:        10/11/2019 05:03 PM
> Subject:        [EXTERNAL] [cacao] Agenda for next Tuesday's call
> Sent by:        <cacao@lists.oasis-open.org>
> 
> 
> 
> All,
> 
> On next week's working call we will be talking through the initial work that has been done on the specification document [1] and addressing next steps.  Please review the document before the call and if possible, add your comments and suggestion.  There are many parts that are still missing, we have just barely scratched the surface.  Please feel free to make some contributions.
> 
> We have been looking at JSONLogic as an option for some of the control logic.  But if someone has more familiarity with BPMN and could do a translation to JSON, that would also be a possible option for us. 
> 
> Thanks
> Bret and Allan
> 
> [1] - https://docs.google.com/document/d/1uQCWItomFvQ466MdGhx_0IHfJ4HOfboIRftmomVvrqY/edit#
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
>  
>  
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