Integrating IDS Alert Correlation and OS-Level Dependency Tracking

Intrusion alert correlation techniques correlate alerts into meaningful groups or attack scenarios for the ease to understand by human analysts. However, the performance of correlation is undermined by the imperfectness of intrusion detection techniques. Falsely correlated alerts can be misleading to analysis. This paper presents a practical technique to improve alert correlation by integrating alert correlation techniques with OS-level object dependency tracking. With the support of more detailed and precise information from OSlevel event logs, higher accuracy in alert correlation can be achieved. The paper also discusses the application of such integration in improving the accuracy of hypotheses about possibly missed attacks while reducing the complexity of the hypothesizing process. A series of experiments are performed to evaluate the effectiveness of the method, and the results demonstrate significant improvements on correlation results with the proposed technique.