The Center for Education and Research in Information Assurance and Security (CERIAS)

The Center for Education and Research in
Information Assurance and Security (CERIAS)

Reports and Papers Archive


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An Analysis of Security Incidents on the Internet 1989-1995

John D. Howard

This research analyzed trends in Internet security through an investigation of 4,299 security-related incidents on the Internet reported to the CERT Coordination Center (CERT / CC) from 1989 to 1995.  Prior to this research, our knowledge of security problems on the Internet was limited and primarily anecdotal.  This information could not be effectively used to determine what government policies and programs should be, or to determine the effectiveness of current policies and programs.  This research accomplished the following: 1) development of a taxonomy for the classification of Internet attacks and incidents, 2) organization, classification, and analysis of incident records available at the CERT/CC, and 3) development of recommendations to improve Internet security, and to gather and distribute informatioin about Internet security. With the exception of deniel-of-srvice attacks, security incidents were generally found to be dcreasing relative to the size of the Internet.  The probability of any severe incident not being reported to the CERT/CC was estimated to be between 0% and 4%.  The probability that an incident would be reported if it was above average in terms of duration and number of sites, was around 1 out of 2.6.  Estimates based on this research indicated that a typical Internet domain was involved in no more than around one incident per year, and a typical Internet host in around one incident every 45 years. The taxonomy of computer and network attacks developed for this research was used to present a summary of the relative frequency of various methods of operation and corrective actions.  This was followed by an anaysis of three subgroups: 1) a case study of one site that reported all incidents, 2) 22 incidents that were identified by various measures aas being the most severe in the records, and 3) denial-of-service incidents.  Data from all incidents and these three subgrups were used to estimate the total Internet incident activity during the period of the research.  This was followed by a critical evaluation of the utility of the taxonomy developed for this research.  The analysis concludes with recommendations for Internet users, Internet suppliers, response teams, and the U.S. government.

Added 2002-07-26

The Advent of Netwar

John Arquilla,David Ronfelt
Added 2002-07-26

Internet... The Final Frontier: Eine Ethnographie

Sabine Helmers,Ute Hoffman,Jeanette Hofmann
Added 2002-07-26

Prototyping experiences with classical IP and ARP over signaled ATM Connections

Christoph L. Schuba,Eugene H. Spafford,Berry Kercheval

This paper discusses a prototyping effort in the classical internet protocol (IP) and address the resolution protocol (ARP) over asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) model.

Added 2002-07-26

Commercial Encryption Export Controls

Bureau of Export Administration
Added 2002-07-26

Illinois Electronic Commerce Act

Jim Ryan (Attorney General State of Illinois)
Added 2002-07-26

A Logical Language for Expressing Authorizations

Sushil Jajodia,Pierangela Samarati,V. S. Subrahmanian
Added 2002-07-26


Intermatic Incorporated vs. Dennis Toeppen

US District Court N.D. Illinois
Added 2002-07-26

ASN_EZE: An Analgesic for Writers of ASN.1 Applications

Charles W. Gardiner

Many programmers find that logical data defined in ASN.1 is simple enough, but the physical representation requires painfully careful attention to lots of detail. ASN.1 ‘compilers’ which we had used required a programmer to know the intricacies of both ANS.1 and generated code

Added 2002-07-26


Security Workshop

Los Alamos National Laboratory
Added 2002-07-26

Network/Internet Security Overview

Dr. Albert B. Jeng
Added 2002-07-26