INTERNET-DRAFT Adam W. Montville Intended Status: Standards Track (CIS) Expires: July 18, 2015 David Black (EMC) January 14, 2015 IODEF Enumeration Reference Format draft-ietf-mile-enum-reference-format-13 Abstract The Incident Object Description Exchange Format (IODEF) is an XML data representation framework for sharing information about computer security incidents. In IODEF, the Reference class provides references to externally specified information such as a vulnerability, Intrusion Detection System (IDS) alert, malware sample, advisory, or attack technique. In practice, these references are based on external enumeration specifications that define both the enumeration format and the specific enumeration values, but the IODEF Reference class (as specified in IODEF v1 in RFC 5070) does not indicate how to include both of these important pieces of information. This document establishes a stand-alone data format to include both the external specification and specific enumeration identification value, and establishes an IANA registry to manage external enumeration specifications. While this document does not update IODEF v1, this enumeration reference format is used in IODEF v2 and is applicable to other formats that support this class of enumeration references. Status of this Memo This Internet-Draft is submitted to IETF in full conformance with the provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79. Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), its areas, and its working groups. Note that other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet-Drafts. Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any Adam W. Montville Expires July 18, 2015 [Page 1] INTERNET DRAFT IODEF Enumeration Reference Format January 14, 2015 time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference material or to cite them other than as "work in progress." The list of current Internet-Drafts can be accessed at http://www.ietf.org/1id-abstracts.html The list of Internet-Draft Shadow Directories can be accessed at http://www.ietf.org/shadow.html Copyright and License Notice Copyright (c) 2015 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the document authors. All rights reserved. This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal Provisions Relating to IETF Documents (http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of publication of this document. Please review these documents carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect to this document. Code Components extracted from this document must include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as described in the Simplified BSD License. Table of Contents 1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 1.1 Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 2. Referencing External Enumerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 3 Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 4 IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 5 The ReferenceName Schema . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 6 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 6.1 Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 6.2 Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Adam W. Montville Expires July 18, 2015 [Page 2] INTERNET DRAFT IODEF Enumeration Reference Format January 14, 2015 1 Introduction There is an identified need to specify a format to include relevant enumeration values from other data representation formats in an IODEF document. It is anticipated that this requirement will exist in other standardization efforts within several IETF Working Groups, but the scope of this document pertains solely to IODEF. This format is used in IODEF v2 [I-D.draft-ietf-mile-rfc5070-bis] which replaces the original IODEF v1 [IODEF] specification; this document does not specify use of this format in IODEF v1 [IODEF]. 1.1 Terminology The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119 [RFC2119]. 2. Referencing External Enumerations The need is to place enumeration identifiers and their enumeration format references in IODEF's Reference class. There are several ways to accomplish this goal, but the most appropriate at this point is to require a specific structure for the ReferenceName string of the IODEF Reference class, and use an IANA registry to manage references to specific enumeration reference formats. Per IODEF [IODEF] the ReferenceName is of type ML_STRING. This becomes problematic when specific references, especially enumeration formats such as Common Vulnerability Enumeration [CVE], Common Configuration Enumeration [CCE], Common Platform Enumeration [CPE] and so on, are referenced - how is an implementer to know which type of reference this is, and thus how to parse it? One solution, presented here, is to require that ReferenceName follow a particular format. Inclusion of such enumeration values, especially those related to security automation, is important to incident communication and investigation. Typically, an enumeration identifier is simply an identifier with a specific format as defined by an external party. Further, that enumeration identifier is itself a reference to specific information associated with the identifier. Thus, the ReferenceName is an identifier that is formatted in a specific manner, and which identifies some set of associated information. For example, a vulnerability identifier following the CVE [CVE] formatting specification may be: CVE-2014-0001. That identifier is formatted in a specific manner and relates to information about a Adam W. Montville Expires July 18, 2015 [Page 3] INTERNET DRAFT IODEF Enumeration Reference Format January 14, 2015 specific vulnerability. Communicating the format for the identifier is the subject of this document. 2.1 Reference Name Format The ReferenceName class provides the XML representation for identifying an enumeration and specifying a value from it. A given enumeration is uniquely identified by the specIndex attribute. Each specIndex value corresponds to an entry in the "Enumeration Reference Type Identifiers" IANA registry (see Section 4). The child ID element represents a particular value from the corresponding enumeration identified by the specIndex attribute. The format of the ID element is described in the IANA registry entry of the enumeration. +-------------------------+ | ReferenceName | +-------------------------+ | INTEGER specIndex |<>----------[ ID ] +-------------------------+ Figure 1: The ReferenceName Class The aggregate classes that constitute ReferenceName: ID One. The identifier assigned to represent the particular enumeration object being referenced. The ReferenceName class has one attribute. specIndex Required. INTEGER. Enumeration identifier. This value corresponds to an entry in the "Enumeration Reference Type Identifiers" IANA registry with an identical SpecIndex value. An example of such a reference is as follows: CXI-1234-XYZ http://cxi.example.com Foo Information in the IANA table (see Section 4) would include: Adam W. Montville Expires July 18, 2015 [Page 4] INTERNET DRAFT IODEF Enumeration Reference Format January 14, 2015 Full Name: Concept X Identifier SpecIndex: 1 Version: any Specification URI: http://cxi.example.com/spec_url 2.2 Reference Method Applicability While the scope of this document pertains to IODEF, any standard needing to reference an enumeration identified by a specially formatted string can use this method of providing structure after the standard has been published. In effect, this method provides a standardized interface for enumeration formats, thus allowing a loose coupling between a given standard and the enumeration identifiers it needs to reference now and in the future. Adam W. Montville Expires July 18, 2015 [Page 5] INTERNET DRAFT IODEF Enumeration Reference Format January 14, 2015 3 Security Considerations Ensuring a proper mapping of enumeration reference ID elements to the correct SpecIndex is important. Potential consequences of not mapping correctly include inaccurate information references and similar distribution of misinformation. Use of enumeration reference IDs from trusted sources are preferred to mitigate the risk of receiving and/or providing misinformation. Trust decisions with respect to enumeration reference providers are beyond the scope of this document. However, receiving an IODEF [IODEF] document containing an unknown ReferenceName (i.e. the SpecIndex does not exist in the IANA table) may indicate a misled or malicious source. In some cases it might be possible for a third-party to host content associated with an enumeration reference ID. In such a circumstance, trust extends from the origin of the enumeration reference ID to the third-party, effectively making the third- party a trusted third-party in the context of providing a particular set of enumeration reference IDs. This document is establishing a container for publicly available enumeration values to be included in an IODEF [IODEF] document, and it is important to note the distinction between the enumeration value's format and the information conveyed by the value itself. While the enumeration value may hold information deemed to be private by relying parties, the enumeration format is likely not subject to privacy concerns. However, if the Reference class includes an enumeration value in combination with other data in an IODEF [IODEF] document, the resulting combination could expose information. An example might include attack vectors or system descriptions used in a privacy- related incident. As such, the reader is referred to the IODEF [IODEF] Security Considerations section, which explicitly covers protecting IODEF [IODEF] documents in transit and at rest, ensuring proper recipient authentication, data confidence levels, underlying transport security characteristics, and proper use of IODEF's restriction attribute. 4 IANA Considerations This document specifies an enumeration reference identifier format. All fields, including abbreviation, are mandatory. This document creates the following registry for IANA to manage: Adam W. Montville Expires July 18, 2015 [Page 6] INTERNET DRAFT IODEF Enumeration Reference Format January 14, 2015 Name of the Registry: "Security External Enumeration Registry" Location of Registry: https://www.iana.org/assignments/sec-ext- enum Fields to record in the registry: Full Name: The full name of the enumeration (i.e. the referenced specification) as a string from the printable ASCII character set [RFC0020] with individual embedded spaces allowed. The ABNF [RFC5234] syntax for this field is: 1*VCHAR *(SP 1*VCHAR) Abbreviation: An abbreviation may be an acronym - it consists of upper-case characters (at least two, upper-case is used to avoid mismatches due to case differences), as specified by this ABNF [RFC5234] syntax: ABBREVIATION = 2*UC-ALPHA ; At least two UC-ALPHA = %x41-5A ; A-Z Multiple registrations MAY use the same Abbreviation but MUST have different Versions. SpecIndex: This is an IANA-assigned positive integer that identifies the registration. The first entry added to this registry uses the value 1, and this value is incremented for each subsequent entry added to the registry. Version: The version of the enumeration (i.e. the referenced specification) as a free-form string from the printable ASCII character set [RFC0020] excepting white space, i.e., from VCHAR as defined in [RFC5234]. Some of the characters allowed in the version string are escaped when that string is used in XML documents (e.g., '<' is represented as <); the registered version string contains the unescaped ASCII character in all such cases. Specification URI/Reference: A list of one or more URIs [RFC3986] from which the registered specification can be obtained. The registered specification MUST be readily and publicly available from that URI. The URI SHOULD be a stable reference to a specific version of the specification. URIs that designate the latest version of a specification (which changes when a new version appears) SHOULD NOT be used. Initial registry contents: Adam W. Montville Expires July 18, 2015 [Page 7] INTERNET DRAFT IODEF Enumeration Reference Format January 14, 2015 Full Name: Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures Abbreviation: CVE SpecIndex: 1 Version: 1.0 Specification URI/Reference: https://nvd.nist.gov/download.cfm#CVE_FEED Allocation Policy: Specification Required [RFC5226] (which implies Expert Review [RFC5226]). The Designated Expert is expected to consult with the MILE (Managed Incident Lightweight Exchange) working group or its successor if any such WG exists (e.g., via email to the working group's mailing list). The Designated Expert is expected to review the request and validate the appropriateness of the enumeration for the attribute. This review includes review of the specification associated with the request. The Designated Expert is expected to ensure that the Full Name, Abbreviation and Version are appropriate and that the information at the Specification URI is sufficient to unambiguously parse identifiers based on that specification. Additionally, the Designated Expert should prefer short Abbreviations over long ones. This document uses URNs to describe XML namespaces and XML schemas conforming to a registry mechanism described in [RFC3688]. Registration request for the IODEF enumeration reference format namespace: URI : urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:iodef-enum-1.0 Registrant Contact : See the "Authors' Addresses" section of this document. XML : None. Registration request for the IODEF enumeration reference format XML schema: URI : urn:ietf:params:xml:schema:iodef-enum-1.0 Adam W. Montville Expires July 18, 2015 [Page 8] INTERNET DRAFT IODEF Enumeration Reference Format January 14, 2015 Registrant Contact See the "Authors' Addresses" section of this document. XML : See Section 5, "The ReferenceName Schema", of this document. 5 The ReferenceName Schema 6 References 6.1 Normative References [RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997. [IODEF] Danyliw, R., Meijer, J., and Y. Demchenko, "The Incident Object Description Exchange Format", RFC 5070, December 2007. [RFC5226] Narten, T. and H. Alvestrand, "Guidelines for Writing an IANA Considerations Section in RFCs", BCP 26, RFC 5226, May 2008. [RFC3986] Berners-Lee, T., Fielding, R., and L. Masinter, "Uniform Resource Identifier (URI): Generic Syntax", STD 66, RFC 3986, January 2005. Adam W. Montville Expires July 18, 2015 [Page 9] INTERNET DRAFT IODEF Enumeration Reference Format January 14, 2015 [RFC5234] Crocker, D., Ed., and P. Overell, "Augmented BNF for Syntax Specifications: ABNF", STD 68, RFC 5234, January 2008. [RFC3688] Mealling, M., "The IETF XML Registry", BCP 81, RFC 3688, January 2004. 6.2 Informative References [RFC0020] Cerf, V., "ASCII format for network interchange", RFC 20, October 1969. [I-D.draft-ietf-mile-rfc5070-bis] Danyliw, R., and Stoecker, P., "The Incident Object Description Exchange Format v2", draft- ietf-mile-rfc5070-bis-10 (work in progress), November 2014. [CCE] http://cce.mitre.org [CPE] http://cpe.mitre.org [CVE] http://cve.mitre.org Authors' Addresses Adam W. Montville EMail: adam.w.montville@gmail.com David Black EMC Corporation EMail: david.black@emc.com Adam W. Montville Expires July 18, 2015 [Page 10]