Characterizing the Modification Space of Signature IDS Rules

Signature-based Intrusion Detection Systems (SIDSs) are traditionally used to detect malicious activity in networks. A notable example of such a system is Snort, which compares network traffic against a series of rules that match known exploits. Current SIDS rules are designed to minimize the amount of legitimate traffic flagged incorrectly, reducing the burden on network administrators. However, different use cases than the traditional one–such as researchers studying trends or analyzing modified versions of known exploits–may require SIDSs to be less constrained in their operation. In this paper, we demonstrate that applying modifications to real-world SIDS rules allow for relaxing some constraints and characterizing the performance space of modified rules. We develop an iterative approach for exploring the space of modifications to SIDS rules. By taking the modifications that expand the ROC curve of performance and altering them further, we show how to modify rules in a directed manner. Using traffic collected and identified as benign or malicious from a cloud telescope, we find that the removal of a single component from SIDS rules has the largest impact on the performance space. Effectively modifying SIDS rules to reduce constraints can enable a broader range of detection for various objectives, from increased security to research purposes.