[logs] Log Analysis (of Security Devices)

From: Shane Amante (shaneat_private)
Date: Tue Feb 25 2003 - 17:47:23 PST

  • Next message: Jose Nazario: "Re: [logs] Log Analysis (of Security Devices)"

    I'm curious what algorithms people are using to digest their log files 
    in search of patterns, or other "interesting events", specifically as 
    it relates to firewall or NIDS devices?
    
    Most of the tools that I've seen, mainly to analyze firewall logs, 
    output results in descending order of the frequency of individual 
    messages, or "attacks".  A simple example would be, assume that in the 
    course of 24 hours src IP A launches 1,000 packets toward a single 
    dest-port on one of my servers (all get dropped); also during that 24 
    hours src IP B launches 200 packets toward a single dest-port on one of 
    my servers (again, all get dropped); the resulting loganalysis program 
    ranks src A highest, src B second highest, etc.  Although that's one 
    way of looking at the data, I'm interested in more sophisticated 
    analysis that covers other dimensions, specifically: time, distribution 
    of src IPs + ports, distribution of attacks from the same src IPs + 
    ports over time, distribution of dest IPs + ports, distribution of dest 
    IPs + ports over time, etc.
    
    The end goal would be to spot attacks, or precursors to attacks, that 
    would otherwise get lost in the "noise" of less sophisticated analyses 
    programs.  What are useful methods/algorithms/tools people are using to 
    do this?  Or, do people not lose sleep at night worrying about this :-) 
    ?
    
    -shane
    
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