Re: [cti-stix] Proposal - Top Level Relationship Object

["Jason Keirstead" <Jason.Keirstead@ca.ibm.com>]

What is the difference between having an unknown assertion and an assertion with no backing... isn't it the same thing?

I feel a bit like we've taken this thread down a Donald Rumsfeld path :) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There_are_known_knowns for any unaware)

For the record, I agree with you in general as to having a zero or negative confidence not make sense - which is kind of why I am pressing this :) To me, any assertion should have an enforced confidence (as Brett said), and have a value.

It doesn't make any sense to make it optional... if you're asserting it, you must have a reason, and that reason shroud have a confidence...

-
Jason Keirstead
Product Architect, Security Intelligence, IBM Security Systems
www.ibm.com/security | www.securityintelligence.com

Without data, all you are is just another person with an opinion - Unknown


"Kirillov, Ivan A." ---2015/07/29 04:58:35 PM---Zero confidence to me implies that one has some backing data supporting the confidence assertion (or

From: "Kirillov, Ivan A." <ikirillov@mitre.org>
To: Jason Keirstead/CanEast/IBM@IBMCA, "Wunder, John A." <jwunder@mitre.org>
Cc: Aharon Chernin <achernin@soltra.com>, "Baker, Jon" <bakerj@mitre.org>, "Jordan, Bret" <bret.jordan@bluecoat.com>, "Chris O'Brien" <COBrien@cert.gov.uk>, "cti-stix@lists.oasis-open.org" <cti-stix@lists.oasis-open.org>, JG on CTI-TC <jg@ctin.us>
Date: 2015/07/29 04:58 PM
Subject: Re: [cti-stix] Proposal - Top Level Relationship Object

---

Zero confidence to me implies that one has some backing data supporting the confidence assertion (or lack thereof), which is different from it being unknown. However, I can’t really fathom why you’d ever want to express a negative assertion such as zero confidence.

Also, while we’re on this topic, I’m not a big fan of “unknown”, “other”, and similar catch-alls. IMO, if something like the confidence level in a relationship is unknown, it should simply not be included.

Regards,
Ivan

From: <cti-stix@lists.oasis-open.org> on behalf of Jason Keirstead
Date: Wednesday, July 29, 2015 at 3:25 PM
To: John Wunder
Cc: Aharon Chernin, Jon Baker, Bret Jordan, Chris O'Brien, "cti-stix@lists.oasis-open.org", JG on CTI-TC
Subject: Re: [cti-stix] Proposal - Top Level Relationship Object

Well... 0 would be exactly what it says... zero confidence, aka "no confidence".

Is there a difference between "no confidence" and "unknown confidence"? To me they're the same thing... if you don't know, you don't know.

-
Jason Keirstead
Product Architect, Security Intelligence, IBM Security Systems
www.ibm.com/security | www.securityintelligence.com

Without data, all you are is just another person with an opinion - Unknown


"Wunder, John A." ---2015/07/29 04:23:55 PM---I don't know, what does a confidence of 0 mean? To me the statement that the confidence is unknown i

From: "Wunder, John A." <jwunder@mitre.org>
To: Jason Keirstead/CanEast/IBM@IBMCA
Cc: "Jordan, Bret" <bret.jordan@bluecoat.com>, Aharon Chernin <achernin@soltra.com>, "Baker, Jon" <bakerj@mitre.org>, JG on CTI-TC <jg@ctin.us>, "Chris O'Brien" <COBrien@cert.gov.uk>, "cti-stix@lists.oasis-open.org" <cti-stix@lists.oasis-open.org>
Date: 2015/07/29 04:23 PM
Subject: Re: [cti-stix] Proposal - Top Level Relationship Object

---

I don't know, what does a confidence of 0 mean?

To me the statement that the confidence is unknown is quite different from the statement that the confidence very low.

From: <cti-stix@lists.oasis-open.org> on behalf of Jason Keirstead
Date: Wednesday, July 29, 2015 at 3:19 PM
To: "Wunder, John A."
Cc: "Jordan, Bret", Aharon Chernin, Jon Baker, JG on CTI-TC, Chris O'Brien, "cti-stix@lists.oasis-open.org"
Subject: Re: [cti-stix] Proposal - Top Level Relationship Object

What is the difference between having confidence be optional or "unknown" and assigning a value of 0?


-
Jason Keirstead
Product Architect, Security Intelligence, IBM Security Systems
www.ibm.com/security | www.securityintelligence.com

Without data, all you are is just another person with an opinion - Unknown


"Wunder, John A." ---2015/07/29 03:10:51 PM---I agree with you on reducing optionality but to me these "unknown" values are just hiding optionalit

From: "Wunder, John A." <jwunder@mitre.org>
To: "Jordan, Bret" <bret.jordan@bluecoat.com>, Aharon Chernin <achernin@soltra.com>
Cc: "Baker, Jon" <bakerj@mitre.org>, JG on CTI-TC <jg@ctin.us>, "Chris O'Brien" <COBrien@cert.gov.uk>, "cti-stix@lists.oasis-open.org" <cti-stix@lists.oasis-open.org>
Date: 2015/07/29 03:10 PM
Subject: Re: [cti-stix] Proposal - Top Level Relationship Object
Sent by: <cti-stix@lists.oasis-open.org>

---

I agree with you on reducing optionality but to me these "unknown" values are just hiding optionality rather than eliminating it.

If anything it seems like having the field not present vs. a special "unknown" value is more obvious and explicit because it makes it clear that it's a special case. Otherwise you're going to have a lot of "if val == 'unknown'" code paths, and hardcoded strings with special meanings are bad.

John

From: "Jordan, Bret"
Date: Wednesday, July 29, 2015 at 1:55 PM
To: Aharon Chernin
Cc: Jon Baker, "Wunder, John A.", JG on CTI-TC, Chris O'Brien, "cti-stix@lists.oasis-open.org"
Subject: Re: [cti-stix] Proposal - Top Level Relationship Object

It has to be that way... Confidence has to be required, even if the the value is "unknown". We need to reduce the optionality and make code decision trees easier.


Thanks,

Bret



Bret Jordan CISSP 
Director of Security Architecture and Standards | Office of the CTO
Blue Coat Systems
PGP Fingerprint: 63B4 FC53 680A 6B7D 1447 F2C0 74F8 ACAE 7415 0050
"Without cryptography vihv vivc ce xhrnrw, however, the only thing that can not be unscrambled is an egg."

On Jul 29, 2015, at 08:57, Aharon Chernin <achernin@soltra.com> wrote:

Have you considered the case where an analyst wants to simply say that this collection of objects seems to be related?

Wouldn't this just be a low confidence relationship?

Aharon Chernin
CTO
SOLTRA | An FS-ISAC & DTCC Company
18301 Bermuda green Dr
Tampa, fl 33647
813.470.2173 | achernin@soltra.com
www.soltra.com




---


From: cti-stix@lists.oasis-open.org <cti-stix@lists.oasis-open.org> on behalf of Baker, Jon <bakerj@mitre.org>
Sent: Wednesday, July 29, 2015 8:37 AM
To: Wunder, John A.; Jordan, Bret
Cc: JG on CTI-TC; Chris O'Brien; cti-stix@lists.oasis-open.org
Subject: RE: [cti-stix] Proposal - Top Level Relationship Object

John,

Have you considered the case where an analyst wants to simply say that this collection of objects seems to be related?

Imagine a case where you think that a bunch of things (incidents/observables/etc) are related, but you have not yet done the in depth analysis to understand the nature of their relationship. I had this sort of generic grouping of things in mind for a top level relationship object. In this case, I don’t think you could always have a From and To IDREF. You might just have a collection of IDREFs.

Jon

============================================
Jonathan O. Baker
J83D - Cyber Security Partnerships, Sharing, and Automation
The MITRE Corporation
Email: bakerj@mitre.org

From: cti-stix@lists.oasis-open.org [mailto:cti-stix@lists.oasis-open.org] On Behalf Of Wunder, John A.
Sent: Tuesday, July 28, 2015 4:15 PM
To: Jordan, Bret <bret.jordan@bluecoat.com>
Cc: JG on CTI-TC <jg@ctin.us>; Chris O'Brien <COBrien@cert.gov.uk>; cti-stix@lists.oasis-open.org
Subject: Re: [cti-stix] Proposal - Top Level Relationship Object

Sure...personally I would do this, which is almost identical to what we do now (other than being at the top level rather than within an object):

Relationship
ID (for the relationship) [required]
From IDREF [required]
To IDREF [required]
Relationship Qualifier [required]
Confidence [optional]

I'm undecided on whether information source information belongs in the STIX data model at all. By virtue of being in the data model it means someone is asserting it so it's impossible to verify. Digital signatures or something else out of the data model (relying on TAXII, etc.) seem like a better approach to me. But I don't have strong opinions on this and if we do include information source in the data model I would add that here.

John

From: "Jordan, Bret"
Date: Tuesday, July 28, 2015 at 4:05 PM
To: "Wunder, John A."
Cc: JG on CTI-TC, Chris O'Brien, "cti-stix@lists.oasis-open.org"
Subject: Re: [cti-stix] Proposal - Top Level Relationship Object

Great... Now we are discussing it... Please spell out what that would look like.

Thanks,

Bret



Bret Jordan CISSP
Director of Security Architecture and Standards | Office of the CTO
Blue Coat Systems
PGP Fingerprint: 63B4 FC53 680A 6B7D 1447 F2C0 74F8 ACAE 7415 0050
"Without cryptography vihv vivc ce xhrnrw, however, the only thing that can not be unscrambled is an egg."
On Jul 28, 2015, at 13:51, Wunder, John A. <jwunder@mitre.org> wrote:

No directionality or description/qualifier? It seems like you want to be able to say *what* a relationship is describing and also which direction it goes in.

I.e. TTP malware "is variant of" other TTP malware
vs. TTP malware "is same as" other TTP malware given a different name by a different vendor

From: <cti-stix@lists.oasis-open.org> on behalf of "Jordan, Bret"
Date: Tuesday, July 28, 2015 at 3:41 PM
To: JG on CTI-TC
Cc: Chris O'Brien, "cti-stix@lists.oasis-open.org"
Subject: Re: [cti-stix] Proposal - Top Level Relationship Object

I see the relationship object being pretty simple and straight forward:


Relationship
IDREF (1-n)
Source
Confidence

Thanks,

Bret



Bret Jordan CISSP
Director of Security Architecture and Standards | Office of the CTO
Blue Coat Systems
PGP Fingerprint: 63B4 FC53 680A 6B7D 1447 F2C0 74F8 ACAE 7415 0050
"Without cryptography vihv vivc ce xhrnrw, however, the only thing that can not be unscrambled is an egg."
On Jul 28, 2015, at 13:16, JG on CTI-TC <jg@ctin.us> wrote:

Chris:

You are not going insane...we are all dealing with these same issues.

Some of the more recent discussions (after you made this post) with
respect to 'Sightings' seem to make a lot of sense to me...that is, to
push the Sighting functionality further down in the data model...That
is, down to the CybOX level...

And I think we need to think about the Relationship object with respect
to 'Communities of Interest'... For example, a malware research
Community of Interest that is using Indicator, Observable, TTP and
ExploitTarget may seek to express Relationships in a way that shows the
Static and Behavioral characteristics of the malware (deep in the data
model and at a very refined level of granularity)

...Whereas an Incident Response Community of Interest that is using
Indicator, Incident and CourseOfAction may need the Relationship object
defined in a separate way.... that is, one that is more tied to
"actionable intelligence" which may then tie into ExploitTarget,
ThreatActor, and Campaign...which then becomes of interest to a law
enforcement Community of Interest.

Of course... handling this may take us back into the debate on Profiles...

Jane Ginn
CTIN

On 7/27/2015 3:44 AM, Chris O'Brien wrote:
For what it's worth, from me, I think this would be pretty huge (coupled with the sightings object as well). As an analyst trying to identify useful data for my customers on large data sets, I'm interested in being able to produce top-level, automated assessments on data quality of feeds/dbs of stix data, and one of the ways that I'd suggest that a specific data point is of a 'high quality' is if it has multiple relationships and/or sightings. Add in to that the ability to rank producers, and even analytical assertion confidence, and you've got all the makings of a an algorithm for a heuristic grading scheme that could feed something even more awesome...like a machine learning project that can conduct threat pattern detection... As you say, Bret, this also gives scope for those relationships to have their own concept of 'quality' based on their related analytical assertions / confidence.

I'd perhaps throw in to the discussion that it may not need to be a standalone object in its own right - we're currently experimenting with using the existing stix architecture relationships (with a little extra meta data) to achieve the desired effect, but it gets messy quickly and direct references to the relationships are by-way-of the object that they sit on (then you ask...which end of the relationship is the 'master' for that relationship, or must they both be updated when a change is made...what happens if one of them isn't in your namespace, etc, etc). Jimmy-rigging solutions to those issues feels feasible, but messy, prescriptive and makes anyone with a coding background have a little cry to themselves. It's something we're having to think about here at the moment - just wanted to mention that it's still possible and would be less impactful to existing deployments.

Cheers,
cob

PS: If anyone else is looking in to this sort of heuristic / predictive / minority report-esque implementation, it'd be good to hear from you. If only to confirm that I'm not going completely insane.


-----Original Message-----
From: cti-stix@lists.oasis-open.org [mailto:cti-stix@lists.oasis-open.org] On Behalf Of Jordan, Bret
Sent: 24 July 2015 22:57
To: cti-stix@lists.oasis-open.org
Subject: [cti-stix] Proposal - Top Level Relationship Object

I would like to see a top level relationship object that just contains references to the times that are related. This needs its own ID so people can reference it and disagree with it or sight it or enrich it with other data.

Bret

Sent from my Commodore 64
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Jane Ginn, MSIA, MRP
Cyber Threat Intelligence Network, Inc.
jg@ctin.us



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