A Study of Cyber Attack Behavior based on Algebraic Topology

Xiaoyu Zhang, Huaizhi Yan*, Zhen Liu*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalConference articlepeer-review

Abstract

It is inevitable that serious damage will occur once the hosts suffer from cyberattack. Therefore, the study of cyberattacks has become indispensable in the field of cyber security. Host-oriented cyberattacks consist of a series of atomic attacks attacking system objects and metrics on atomic attacks can quantitatively describe the behavior of cyber attacks. When the atomic attack behavior constitutes a manifold topological space, host-oriented assessment of the effects of a cyberattack can be computed using an algebraic topology. The concepts of manifold and other spaces in algebraic topology can be used to model and analyze the system composed of many elements. Therefore, by handling the relationships between metrics appropriately (e.g., complex mappings), the topological space of attack scenarios is constructed. This paper uses a cellular manifold to show the geometric structure of cyberattack behaviors. In this solution, we select the metrics depicting the cyber attack behavior and clear their dependence through the construction of cyberattack behavior sequence graph, and then put forward the cyberattack behavior model based on the relationship between metrics. WannaCry ransomware attack is analyzed by applying our model, which provides a new idea for quantifying cyberattack.

Original languageEnglish
Article number012068
JournalJournal of Physics: Conference Series
Volume1856
Issue number1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 8 Apr 2021
Event2021 International Conference on Computer Network Security and Software Engineering, CNSSE 2021 - Zhuhai, China
Duration: 26 Feb 202128 Feb 2021

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Zhang, X., Yan, H., & Liu, Z. (2021). A Study of Cyber Attack Behavior based on Algebraic Topology. Journal of Physics: Conference Series, 1856(1), Article 012068. https://doi.org/10.1088/1742-6596/1856/1/012068